Merlin: The Heir of Annwn
by Stella Limegood
Summary: Long has the World of the Underground, been separate from man. Now with 'The Wicked Day' come, the Doors of Old have reopened: New Evils arrive, Secrets of Merlin's mother will shake everything the warlock ever was or thought he knew, Uther lives, powerful strangers are in Camelot, magical changes, Queens, dragons & worst of all Arthur thinks,"I now know about IT!"
1. Prologue

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 **.**

 **Prologue:**

 _The beginning of a story is the easiest part to write. For always in the beginning everything is clear and concise. It is the moment when the author knows precisely what it is that they want to share and where it is that they desire to take their listener too. It is the fun part, the quick part, and the intriguing part but more importantly it is the magical part. Making it the oldest part._

 _For life is magic, it's beauty captured in the initial sparkle of dawns light to the gentle passing of clouds that soar high above the trees. Through nature plants it grows with their stretching leaves and twisting roots. It glistens in the shining blades of grass that are to the earth like hair, for you or I._

 _In all things does magic dwell, in all things does it show itself from the cry of newborns to the howls of wolves and the songs of the oceans whales. It rests in the silence of mountains and it bustles about in the buzzing of bees, blossoming into the beauty of flowers that crown the earth in splendor and color, like the jewels in a fine maiden's dress. And as magic exists in all things so then does it exist in the words of men._

 _Particularly stories._

 _Thus like the other numerous millions that have come before it throughout the rolling hills of time, this tale begins…_

 _With the_ _ **Words of Eternity**_ _._

 _ **Words of Magic.**_

 _Powerful words that mothers and fathers from time immemorial have spoken to all life's children in dimming evening hours…. there are variations…. there are countless. …different dialects… multiple tongues...but. …they each take the very same first ancient breathe…_

" _ **O**_ _nce_ _…_ _ **Once**_ _ **…Upon A Time**_ _…."_

' _**In…a ..land of myth and an age of magic….'**_

…. ****************************************************************************** …..

Hunith couldn't sleep.

She was restless and worried, the winds were howling outside against her small home causing the wooden shutters to shake, as if they sought entrance? She shuddered as they prowled and blew across the top of her rooftop and toyed with the nearest tree branches causing them to sway and twine.

They felt like they were mocking her about her current state of being, "And perhaps the winds are? For am I not shivering and shaking as much as my little home is under their playful bantering," she thought fretfully as she glanced around her small cottage.

This place. This small little place was her home, it was where she had found new precious _love_ kept _hidden,_ and saved dear gentle Balinor. It was where she had made friends, cooked meals, birthed a _child,_ and _grew_ a life.

" _Albeit a mortal life. But still hers….so why now? Why?"_ _she wanted to screech._

Hunith let out a deep sigh as she went to stoke the small fire place in her house, she wore nothing more then a simple shift, and began rubbing her arms to keep warm, her chestnut hair was done down in a nice braid and all though she couldn't see them yet, she could already feel the changes coming over her.

" _You knew," whispered her mind like a stinging kiss, "You've always known it wouldn't last."_

Hunith slowly placed a log on her fireplace and knelt before it's hungry flames, she stayed that way for what seemed an age and watched the twirling fire throw sparks, as if hypnotized by them. Hours went by with each little light, and just when she thought the winds would blow her house away for good, they stopped.

Hunith's back stiffened and she felt herself freeze..

 _No more time…_.

Silence fell upon all of Ealdor, and the animals from the dull-looking cow to the dog near its master's bed suddenly grew awake, alert and very, very still. A shadow played across the tiny village of man, and from the trees to the tiny sprigs of grass all of nature seemed to grow heavy with a near human like awareness and a sense of uneasy quiet.

 _Something had come, and yet not so much as a cricket dared to make noise._

A mortal man who had been designated as the local watchman for the village that night had been enjoying a calm smoke from his pipe when he suddenly felt a great feeling of fear wash upon him? He turned around just as the moon's light peaked out of a cloud to reveal a great horned presence standing in the center of the village's square but instantaneously at the sight, the man fell off his stool into deep blissful slumber.

In fact in those same seconds all of the little village's inhabitants joined him in sleep as the stars alone laid witness to the black-clad horned figure's movements.

All but one villager, that is.

For the woman known as Hunith was still by her fireplace, and she was still very much awake.

The enchantment of the being having had no effect on her whatsoever...

The fire was flickering back and forth in curiosity and as Hunith stayed there kneeling by it, she finally felt her body shift completely, and she felt the diamond-esque tears begin to fall from her now glittering star like eyes, " _Twenty-nine. Only twenty-nine years, so fast, so fast, barely even a blink, and my new born babe only turned a mere twenty-two years? Why now? I'm not ready. He's not ready,"_ she thought in frustration.

"You knew this day would come," said a firm female voice as sharp as a sword.

" _He isn't ready! I'm not ready!"_ cried Hunith aloud, refusing to turn around and face the truth just yet, " _More time! I need more time!"_ she thought angrily.

The figure behind her seemed to scoff for a moment having heard both her inner and outer thoughts. It's eyes shone out of the darkness like two piercing jewels from the depths of the ocean though they were as cool as glaciers before it made a rather reproachful reply, "My dear girl, it is not up to you, when, where, or why. This is the one thing that for us, for _our kind_ , just is. Nor will it be for any to decide in this matter and you know so. Tonight is the cusp of his mortal cocoon. You went through it once. As did I. As do we all."

Hunith remained stubbornly silent. It just wasn't fair!

The fireplace crackled, and one brave mouse risked a quick dash across the floor. The stars swirled in the night sky above and somewhere outside a raven? Nay a crow, called out to both Hunith and the shadowy figure with news. However only the later made a small gesture of an answer, by merely tilting their elegant horned head slightly back towards the huts open door in mild acknowledgement.

No reply came from Hunith to the crow, though she tried to send a gentle pulse to him through the air to let him know that she was not trying to ignore him, her mind was just consumed with worries.

A small caw spoke a gentle understanding of the situation, before the crow flew to a closer perch.

After some more stubborn silence from Hunith the horned being in the room grew all together a little impatient with Hunith and let out a vexed sigh of frustration that could have rivaled any dragons, "Child," it spoke, "Can one change the time of the tides or the hour of a birthing? Can one change the ways of the constellations or the dancing of the seasons? Can one take life without balance and yield no consequence? Can one break all the deep magic of the earth just to meet one's personal whims? Sweet Celestial Heavens dearest! You knew this would happen. We both knew this day would be so."

" _BUT HE HASN'T A CLUE! AND I!? I!?"_ wailed Hunith her voice altering to an inhuman cry that sounded more like that of a dying animal and the breaking of shells, as she vainly began pleading with the horned figure now sitting behind her in a wooden rocking chair, "YOU CAN! You have the power! You are the _High Queen of Annwn! Land of the Underground! None Higher! You can move the Stars for him just as you did me! Please, please fy Mam PLEASE! WERE NOT READY OH! PLEASE! I am afraid!"_

For a minute the entity in the shadows of Hunith's house did not move, it fell instead into a deep silence, the silence of the frozen earth, and the world itself waited with baited breath before the figure whispered in a mournful melody the way only one of immortality could. It's sad unshakable reply, "My sweet daughter. I cannot. Nor will I try. It is time."

" _Please… please ..Mother!...I beg …you…I'm…afraid…his father ….already left him with enough of a burden, and..our world…our world is…. A..a complicated…a.. ruin …..hiding…fading… anyway..…"_

"Tsk. Tsk. NO. It most certainly is not," the figure stated cutting Hunith's sentence off with a huff and a wag of one long graceful clawed finger.

" _What!? What do you mean?! But? But it has been years? Centuries? Eons?"_

" _Ie._ It has indeed."

There was an audible silence as Hunith fixed her attention entirely on the being she was kneeling before, in shock. Her mind racing with the unspoken possibilities, the weight of truths up until tonight that had been kept secret, locked far away in the private places of her mind, unfolded. She had thought that she would have had at least one hundred years as a _mortal_ before having to once again play part and pay attention to the goings on of _The Kingdom of Annwn_ but now? Now with this new knowledge she felt a horrible certainty that after tonight her worlds were about to change forever.

Her and her son's _lives_ were about to change completely, utterly, and permanently.

She stared at her mother. Those two unspeakably beautiful all-knowing eyes gazed on her with the softness of ashes and the harshness of ice. Hunith was not able to fully fathom her mother's expression, in that moment, she only knew that the _Queen_ before her was speaking the truth, although there was hidden in those ageless orbs a tint of regret.

Under that gaze Hunith stilled a little, but she had to ask though her immortal body felt as brittle as sand and her petal like lips would not stop quivering, " _Mam…you don't mean, but I thought? I thought Our Age, Our Way was over? That we were to remain hidden as Arawn decreed until…time itself Recycled?! Mam, I don't understand?"_

From the chair the horned figure that was her mother, encased in darkness let out a long drawn out sigh that tinged the room with a warm spicy feeling of magic and slight disgruntlement. Then suddenly her mother rose with an alien grace and stepped as if from a dream into the firelight, Hunith couldn't navigate all the feelings she was suddenly overwhelmed by.

For it had been many years since last she had laid eyes upon one of _her kind_ and fare few could compare with her mother's ardent beauty and awe.

 _Queen Badb of the Immortal Fey. The Warrior Queen of the Tuatha De Danann._

 _High Ruler of the Mighty Underground known as Annwn, the everlasting realm of Magic, stood before her daughter in all her imposing glory._

"Tonight, as has been foretold by the Druidic mortal prophecies, your son will succeed in what many have deemed impossible. He will prove to the Once and Future King that magic has a place in the world and can do wondrous wonderful things…." Spoke Queen Badb her words ricocheting off the walls of the small house and out into the darkness of the night like the rays of a meteor shower, "But…"

"But?" whispered Hunith.

…

Queen Badb let out another slightly exasperated sigh as she gazed around her daughter Hunith's small _human_ home before she turned to meet her youngest child's eyes. Here was the last and only surviving child of Badb's flesh that had survived the _Slaughter_. The only child she, Badb, as Queen, would have for at least another good three centuries, a _merch gwerthfawr, a precious daughter,_ who already had spawned three little ones of her very own.

The oldest of which was falling asleep outside instead of keeping a good lookout. Badb let out a wolfish huff. It seemed she would have to lecture her eldest grandson right after his mother. Ah. Kin.

Still this situation would be hard for her daughter to accept already Badb could see her child quivering like a newborn foul before the anvil had even fallen.

Like her grandmother Rhianna, was her little Hunith, and her heart melted at the fleeting thought like the first fallen snow, yet what was done was done and what would be would be. She had no power to change this and so she did what she must.

She spoke only the eternal truth, "But by doing this great deed," began Queen Badb, "By breaking through his mortal father's, albeit dragon, blood, and bending time and space to meet his will, he will for the very first time _move the stars themselves_. He will do this for a friend…he will save this … rather...unworthy, tainted even, King Uther's life. However this action will cause two things to happen, and even as I speak they begin. Why? In my minds eye I see your son gathering things with shy Gaius, who is in futile trying to dissuade him…" Queen Badb paused for a moment and let out a small chuckle that chimed like little jingle bells, as she mused over the duos frazzled antics. Her cardinal red lips displaying a small glint for playful mischief before once more she spoke seriously.

"Yes. In approximately three mortal hours we will feel _y diweddglo_."

"The ending mother?!" exclaimed Hunith.

"Yes. My youngest tempest," nodded Queen Badb as she continued.

"Tonight the age of our absence in _Aboveground_ ends. Tonight _Time Recycles_ and a new age of this world will be born. Right in the wee early hours of darkness before the dawn as most things do. For it would seem that as your fathers death foretold the end of one eon, your youngest sons rebirth will begin the next," said Queen Badb gently.

Hunith's eyes grew as wide as dinner plates and in her Fey form, now naturally restored, they shone like two large diamond mirrors in stunned awe as her mind frantically absorbed this fretful new fact the Queen had brought her.

Silence pervaded the room with Hunith's shock while outside the citizens of Ealdor slept on in ignorant enchanted slumber as the three Fey discussed their important business.

…

Around the three beings the world of nature began to stir in excitement from the smallest ant to the largest old oak who struck up the task of whispering to the birch the news of the _First Kind_ it had overheard, and as the tree whispered in the hollows of it's roots, deep in a burrow a fox pricked it's ears. Then the fox jumped out and told the badger, the badger told the wolf and the wolf told the owl, the owl told the birds and the birds told the deer until even the moon was gifted with the news.

The Fey, _The First Kind,_ were returning to the world that for so long they had let Man dominate.

Once more the land would be undivided from the life giving essence that humans call _Magic_ but what nature knows only as its hearts circulating blood.

In truth there are no tongues of Man that could or can capture all of what _Magic_ and the _Fey_ are to the makings and takings of the worlds, like the Unicorns they have ties to the universe that stretch beyond even a dragons comprehension, but never did Hunith dream that it would be her youngest son to reunite them once more to this realm.

Pride filled her as did trepidation, the shock alone was so great that she barely noticed her mother's claw like nails gently stroking over her iridescent starlit wings. Or the sudden soothing presence of her firstborn son, who in feeling his mother's and grandmothers distress had decided to fly down from his perch and enter his mothers mortal dwelling.

For a moment her family's presence was enough to quell the fear Hunith felt towards the future, but it soon built back up when she realized that her mother had yet to tell her something?

"Mam, you said that? That two things would happen?" the question barely making it out of her mouth.

"So I did," nodded Queen Badb, her black horns glimmering in the firelight.

"Mother?"

"My darling. You already know what the second happening will be," chided her mother as gently as she could, her voice like that of a female tigress picking up her kit as she drew her young daughter into the fold of her embrace.

"You mean….you mean?" choked out Hunith while one glistening tear fell down her cheek and turned into a perfect pearl before it hit the hardwood floor.

It was a small bit of magic but it was a thing of beauty for the unexpected end of Hunith's beautiful mortal life and that of her young sons, who after tonight would never again eat the same, never again touch the same, never again feel the same, or hear, or smell, or live as he had.

Now and with the world beside him all would be changed and somewhere beyond her selfish fey tendencies, Hunith could see in the distant future the new joy that awaited them, but for tonight and only tonight she would mourn the loss of her youngest babes infancy.

She would mourn the loss of Balinor's world. For as awful as it was it had been their world. Hers and His and a fey _never_ forgets a single moment of what they consider to be a _true union of life and love_ , no matter how many mortal or immortal souls they share themselves with.

 _No matter how many beginnings and endings they witness._

Through her mourning Hunith heard her mother, Queen Badb speak and it was with the voice that she knew commanded giants and sprung forth rivers, "Ie. Sweet Child. Your youngest born will grow into his horns. No longer will he be able to wear his human skin as he once did. It is time."

"I just wished I had prepared him a little better. Mam how will I explain?"

"You will explain as I did once with you."

"O Mam I fear his wrath will be quite something, I mean I have not told him anything, not so much as a riddle, he may become as mad as _Aunt Macha_!"

"Ie. Yes, I daresay that will be a vexing hindrance," was the matter of fact reply of the Queen's before she asked in a tone that only after a hundred years of living could cover up the underlying layers of dark sarcasm and disapproving speculation, "My dear girl you really didn't give him any hints at all about us? Not even a traditional ' _bread crumb_?'"

"I tried!" Hunith let out in a twinkle of sparks, "I did, but it isn't the same with humans as it is with shifters or selkies! His sister was so much easier! She guessed it! I fear this one is rather more like his father in regards to some things. The dragon in him always seemed to muddle his understanding and I couldn't break my binding!"

"Humph," snorted the otherworldly Queen, in what had to be the most graceful snort possible, "Well my dear there's no helping that. I told you dragons were troublesome and that includes those human off shoots."

"Mam!"

"They are rather like a breed of dandelions. Popping up wherever they please! Never considering that their root system could upset the order of a perfectly nice patch of clover…" muttered Queen Badb moodily as the room began to sway to dark shadows and thorny vines suddenly sprung over the floor of Hunith's house.

"Mam!"

"And I swear if I ever spend another solstice festival with that pigheaded _Kilgaarah_ , it will be too soon! Do you know that he had the audacity to try to lecture me?" the thorny vines grew exponentially as the fireplace suddenly lit green for a moment in echo of the Queen's fouling mood, "ME? ME! ON how to read the language of Nagas! I? I?! WHO AM FEY! I who salvaged half his species and brought them to _Annwn_ for their protection! I! I WHO SAVED HIS CLAN! That beast, that..that… _fadfall gyda adenydd!_ Is a most annoying, rabble rousing, troublemaking…WHEN I FINALLY FIND THAT OVERGROWN NEWT! GREAT ARAWN'S ANTLERS!? I'LL!? Oooh! I WILL!.."

"WHAT ABOUT ME?! DID YA TELL HIM ABOUT ME MUM!?" cawed a loud excited voice interrupting Queen Badb's incoming rant rather fortuitously for the sake of Hunith's, now well torn up floorboards thanks in part to the magically induced thorny vines.

That with the startled change of their creator's mood swiftly blossomed and then wilted as if they had never been in the little house at all.

" _Oh Diaval,"_ whispered Hunith in fondness as she took in the form of her eldest child.

Across the room from the other two female Fey, now occupying the top of Hunith's kitchen table was a tall lithe dark haired male youth covered in black feathers from head to toe with pale ivory skin and pointed ears, happily helping himself to munch on some of the apples Hunith had placed in a bowl just this morning.

" _Diaval!_ Don't stand on the table!" squawked Queen Badb her eyes flashing a magical golden green in annoyance, "Such manners our unbecoming of a _High Prince of Annwn_!"

"Ah. Gran don't get yur feathers in such a ruffle," laughed the handsome merry feather coated prince as he floated over midair to his mother's side. "What of my brother? Mum? Did ya tell m'brother about m'wonderful self at least?" Inquired the curious young male Fey.

Hunith looked into the strong gentle warm black animal eyes of her eldest son and felt the answer get stuck in her throat in shame. For a moment his expression matched his half-brothers so well the resemblance was uncanny and it made Hunith dizzy, for both her boys had something of her in their facial expressions, and it never ceased to delight and mystify her.

Yet she felt guilt spoil the moment of reunion for since the day her youngest had been born Diaval, the son of her first mate, a gentle shape shifting fey, had been more then thrilled at the news of having a sibling. For years he had begged for a chance to come _Aboveground_ to bond with his baby brother only to be disappointed each time, for there were no exceptions to the _Laws of Arawn_. And the separation that Fey must undergo when it came to the mortal realm had kept Hunith bound to silence upon pain of what a mortal might call death. However, shifters are ferociously loyal pack-minded creatures, and try as she might to explain to _Diaval_ who himself could _move the stars_ if he tried, the risk? Well, he never quite understood or saw reason to obey _Arawn's rulings_ , so Hunith had …fibbed the truth a bit.

None of that mattered now though.

Now the realms were converging once more, the paths reopening, doors unlocking.

So perhaps in hindsight risking one visit would have been preferable to today's events, but Hunith had assumed her youngest babe would not grow into his horns for at least another four decades.

It seemed she had planned poorly indeed.

Diaval must have read all this in her silence for suddenly he let out a loud annoyed tirade of cawing and squawks, "WHAT! KACKK! YOU MEAN MY BROTHER HAS NO IDEA ABOUT ME!? KACKCAWW! HE'S GROWING INTO HIS HORNS AND HE DOESN'T EVEN KNOW HE HAS SIBLINGS?! KACCKCAW! CAW! WHY BY ARAWNS ANTLERS DID YA NOT TELL HIM ABOUT MY BEAUTIFULLNESS! OR SISTER! SHE'LL SINK SEVEN SHIPS AFTER THIS! AND I'LL HAVE TO CLEAN IT UP! CAW! KACK!"

Black, blue and dark purple feathers filled the room in a sudden whirlwind that picked up dishes, dust, and other household objects in it's maelstrom as the young Fey pronounced his serious disapproval.

Just as quickly as the whirlwind started Queen Badb ended it with just one wave of her elegant hand, a thoughtful expression blooming on her face, "Enough Diaval. Calm yourself. My dear daughter. Your eldest makes a fair point and after your own display of anxiety I cannot help but feel that I must step in. The boy takes after me, his power alone will make the transformation…cumbersome."

"NO! NO! MOTHER IT'S TOO RISKY! SHOULD YOU BE SEEN! NO. No. Please mam I can do it! I just need a little more time…I just…" Hunith's sentence trailed off as two wise ocean orbs locked her in their gaze and her mother let out a slightly disdainful chuckle yet without malice.

"Dear daughter if you were able too. You would have done so by now. Nor would you have begged me earlier to prevent it. No," said Queen Badb calmly as a long black staff with a giant glowing emerald colored sphere of light at one end formed out of the very air and fell into her long fingered perfectly graceful inhuman hands.

"No. My dear _merch gwerthfawr_. I believe this one will need to be handled carefully. Besides it's time I met my youngest grandchild. After all who better to explain to him things then I?"

"AND ME!" Diaval interjected in a loud crow as he tried to pat down the dark feathers on his black haired head that had puffed up in his earlier exclamation, "Gran you have to let me come!"

Queen Badb raised one elegant eyebrow at his demand but nodded her great horned head in consent.

"Very well Diaval. You shall join me, but you must do as I say."

"Yes Gran."

"No. Tricks."

"When have I ever done tricks?"

"No Pranks."

"I'd hardly call this the time for a joke."

"Nooo. Surprises."

"…"

"Youngling."

"What about a happy birthday?"

"NO. Surprises."

"Ya know Gran. Sometimes temptation just happens."

"Diaval! Do you want to come?"

"Oh. Alright! Alright!...No surprises," agreed Diaval dejectedly.

"Very good," replied Queen Badb as she tapped the floor with her staff sealing the deal.

"But I won't like it!" Diaval retorted rebelliously, the Queen's attention though was now riveted on her mission so his sass was ignored …for the moment.

Now there were far more pressing matters. It wouldn't be much longer. Already Queen Badb could feel the tides of planets shifting, the boy was preparing his casting.

"Mother what if he doesn't believe you?" asked Hunith.

Against the dark doorway of Hunith's home with the starry night sky behind her, Queen Badb's royal horned silhouette could not be refuted. She was the embodiment of everything that only in the privacy of their dreams that the people of Camelot secretly thought of when it came to that most taboo of subjects.

She was _Magic_ , but more then that Queen Badb was nature, mighty nature and with a firm tap of her glowing staff against the ground she replied to her daughter swiftly and without hesitation.

"Oh I'm sure he won't. All the more reason why we must be going now, dearest, you must return to _Annwn_. There you must wait in the _Moor_ for our return."

"Yes your highness. Mam….please…try not to overwhelm him. Be gentle. Give him a little time before you bring him to our world. . maybe?" requested Hunith softly as guilt and worry still lingered in her fragile glass like heart.

"Tut. Tut. Child. I am over 170,000 years old. I know precisely what to do and when. Trust me. Love. Our young _Merlin De Emrys_ will be fine. He is a _Child of Annwn. A Tuatha De Danaan and I his Queen. All shall be as it should,_ " pronounced Queen Badb as she kissed her daughters forehead in farewell before she left in a flutter of sparkling shimmers.

There was no time to lose.

Shortly after Queen Badb left, _High Prince Diaval_ came up to Hunith and gave her a quick smirking peck on the cheek before he transformed back into the striking dark crow he had arrived in and flew out the window towards Camelot after his grandmother.

When his flying figure was all but gone under the moons passing light all the village of Ealdor slowly began to awake none the wiser. In their drowsy confusion no one was able to notice the beautiful winged creature that soared over their houses protectively one last time before gifting their fields with prosperity as gratitude for her time having spent mortal amongst them in their little village.

No one heard her voice either of twigs & starlight whisper to the clouds in a mother's loving tone the simple name, " _Merlin_."

Before Hunith herself vanished _._

All that remained by morning were fields full of bounty and a _small ring of mushrooms,_ where Huniths house used to be, leaving the villagers come dawn completely mystified?

Disclaimer:-(O_-)

(Lifts up rock)….(Checks for angry fans of other stories started)..("Coast looks Clear?")

…So.

Where to begin? Right so I know that I have **failed utterly** and **completely at updating and keeping up** with my stories online. I also know that I have utterly failed at getting even close to finishing any of my other stories, and that I really have no business. NO BUSINESS.. whatsoever in starting yet another story!

X_X..

(This is where I fall to my knees and beg for your forgiveness)

((Like right now, yeah now I am on my knee's kissing your toes dear readers for understanding.))

But I just couldn't resist this or the …two... maybe three... possibly four...five...s..i..x..-_o.

Ahem. (yikes)

Other ideas being born in my skull! They just had to be put to paper! Oh lord...Okay so..I was going to **try** to be smart about this one. Truthfully I wasn't going to post it online until I had at least 5 chapters written prior, and my other fics updated at least once (god-willing) but and this is the important part:

 **I'm a really pathetically slow typer, I'm like the Snail Typist..(sob), plus my own editor, & with real life getting in the way & job drama. Well it just takes a super long time for me to write a bunch all at once & then post.. **

**So...since I mostly just write for my own inner demons anyway & for fun, I decided, "To Hell with it! I'm posting whatever I have that's ready to be posted! Whenever I can, whenever I want! Consistency be D#$#2 %!"**

 **However, I am sorry about the great lags in time between updates. Please believe me I'm doing my best here, when it comes to juggling my crazy life, but I can't promise anything except I'M STILL WRITING!**

 **On that note I do have some sad news for my fans: My story Avengers Stardust Is officially on HIATUS. Will I continue it maybe, maybe not? I myself don't know at this time. Currently my brain is bouncing all over the place, but that is the only one of my works that is in danger of being abandoned.**

 **Right well I don't think there's anything more to be said about that so onto..**

 **-Facts for this Story-**

Now let me explain something this fanfic is an A.U. and a crossover.

But not the kind of crossover one might presume in thinking. Meaning: I'm only taking certain character descriptions, personalities and aspects of things and blending them.

Therefore things **will not be canon.** And yet hopefully the originality that does show will shine through.

 **So what am I crossing over? Well here it is: This is a MALEFICENT, Random Old Folklore, and Merlin Fanfic.**

However, it is heavily being influenced by outside sources such as the Mabignonian and the Tuatha De Danaan, Irish & Welsh & other Lore all rolled together in a heaping pile of god only knows what!

THINGS TO KEEP IN MIND FOR THIS TALE ARE AS FOLLOWED:

 **1\. After much self- conflict and debate the language for the Fey in this story will be: Welsh.**

I wanted it to be Old Irish-Scot-Gaelic? But I couldn't find an easy translator online, (I know very sad really blame my pathetic American raised brain). All in all I'm going to try to go a little easy on the language thing. I will probably be working around it but again who knows!?

Right now I see this story as having a total of maybe twenty-six chapters in the long run?

And as for the T.V. Show Merlin's magic etc: According to the Show's cite the spells are Old English? I found a translator for that so that's what I'll be using or trying to use...sigh.

(Get ready for the butchering of languages all around!)-_-...

 **2.**

 **Now timeline wise: THIS STORY TAKES PLACE AT THE VERY VERY BEGINNING OF SEASON 4 FOR THE BBC T.V SHOW MERLIN: DURING THE EPISODE OF THE WICKED DAY- HOWEVER THE TWO EPISODES THAT HAPPENED PRIOR- CALLED THE DARKEST HOUR I BELIEVE? WHERE MERLIN & ARTHUR ARE PITTED AGAINST THE DOROCHA. NEVER HAPPENED.**

THOSE TWO EPISODES DID NOT HAPPEN IN THIS FANFIC.

MORGAUSE IS STILL ALIVE.

LANCELOT IS STILL ALIVE.

MERLIN AND FRIENDS HAVE YET TO ENCOUNTER THE CAILIECH (CAELICH)((I do believe I've spelled that wrong? Apologies.))!

ELYAN, GWAIN, LEON, PERCIVAL, AND LANCELOT ARE ALL KNIGHTS.

 **THE EPISODES UP AND THROUGH SEASON 3- _UNTIL_ 'THE COMING OF ARTHUR' WENT THE SAME WAY THEY DID IN THE SHOW.**

 **HOWEVER, DURING ' _THE COMING OF ARTHUR'_ A FEW THINGS REGARDING CENRED  & MORGANA WENT DOWN DIFFERENTLY. FOR ONE SHE WASN'T CROWNED AND DIDN'T KILL CITIZENS.**

As the story moves on the plot will explain itself.

 **3.**

Now….For the **MOVIE Maleficent** part.

 **IT'S MOSTLY AN ALTERNATIVE UNIVERSE IN REGARDS TO THE FILM.**

 **QUEEN BADB: IS FOR ALL ACCOUNTS MALEFICENT BOTH IN PERSONALITY AND APPEARANCE JUST WITH A NAME CHANGE, other Original Characters may even use the name Maleficent in regards to her.  
**

 **ALTHOUGH SHE WILL IN PART TO HAVING A VERY DIFFERENT HISTORY AND SIBLINGS WILL NOT SHOW THE SAME CHOICES ETC..**

EXPECT VARIATIONS!

THERE WILL BE A KING STEPHEN INVOLVED.

THERE WILL ALSO BE AN AURORA WITH A SIMILAR SITUATION AS MALEFICENT, MOST LIKELY A NAME CHANGE AND ALTERNATIVE LIFE. I AM AT THIS POINT UNDECIDED.

 **DIAVAL: IS THE SAME IN ATTITUDE & APPEARANCE ALTHOUGH PERHAPS EVEN MORE GORGEOUS, **

((yes. Yes. I'm a fangirl. I can't help it. Sigh. He's just so much fun! Ahem.)) **AND MOST IMPORTANT HE IS IN THIS UNIVERSE: QUEEN BADB'S/AKA/MALEFICENT'S FIRST BORN GRANDCHILD VIA HUNITH.**

 **MAKING HIM MERLIN'S ELDER BROTHER & CROWN PRINCE! **

Now..there will be other characters like the three fairy's and such, but everything will be altered and probably messed with. You the readers and I the writer will see what happens as I progress, (god willing, brace yourselves, this could all blow up in our faces.)

 **4.**

 **IN REGARDS TO OLD FOLKLORE: IT'S A RIGHT PROPER MIX MASH!**

 **(Well! Claps hands together) I do believe that will help everyone.**

 **All in all** I do not own any characters that are recognizable to a T.V. Show or Film. They belong to someone else but if anyone knows how I can get a **job** for those people please let me know!

What I do own is the idea of mashing things together in this unique way and any original characters that have no basis on anything else. For example in later chapter Aunt Macha or Merlin's half sister will be my own personal creations.

And thus this disclaimer is complete.

Now on to more writing!


	2. Chapter 1

_Merlin: The Heir of Annwn_

 _By: Stella Limegood._

 _Chapter 1._

 _ **P** rince Arthur of Camelot was afraid._

 _Scratch that he was petrified!_

Here it was, the night of his twenty-second birthday, and his father lay there dying.

It really just wasn't fair.

'After everything we went through last year? How could this be possible?' he thought glumly as he reflected on the events that had taken place 13 months prior.

He, Merlin and Gwaine, after escaping the slave trader had been lucky enough to find the _Cup of Life_ , amongst the druids, and just when Arthur had thought everything would turn out okay. Bam! Catastrophe struck! They'd been attacked, and lost it. Next much to his eternal frustration and embarrassment he'd pass out from a bloody arrow wound, just like a girl! A girl!

Merlin would never know how thankful he was that he hadn't been teased over it. Then as if life couldn't of gotten anymore 'delightful' at the time, he'd woken up to find Merlin and Gwaine sitting around him like a pair of wet nurses in the middle of the night, with the _Cup of Life_ still lost to Cenred!

Who as far as Arthur had been able to tell had wasted no time, the wretch and his right hand sorceress had beaten them to Camelot by a full day, and the image of his home burning from on top of the hill was one that would haunt Arthur for the rest of his life. As would the sight of his once proud father being forcefully held down by the guards as that...that loathsome scum had gloated over his victory and worse thrown his father's secret right into his face!

 _He felt himself swallow_ , at the memory.

' _My sister,' he thought, 'Morgana is my sister.'_

No matter how many times he tried to wrap the information around his skull, it still felt surreal? Yet what could also feel more natural? They'd grown up together side by side. During bad thunderstorms when they were little she used to hide with him under his bed. They had nearly shared everything from toys to swords, and now all the times that his father had bent to her wishes made sense. So too did those little moments that they had felt while staring at each other back when he was a boy running around the palace hand in hand. As if they'd been able to know with instinct despite their ignorant young minds that they were related?

He'd seen other wards, met a few at court, none had been given as much freedom or as much standing as Morgana had, it had been a fact he had been proud of and more then once bragged about. She had blended seamlessly into his and Uther's family like a stream that joins a river. At times to Arthur at least, she had been the missing element of his family that had needed filling with his mother's absence. Albeit sisters and mothers are two entirely different things but they are both places that belong to that of the female gender, and even amongst royalty no perhaps simply in all human families at least one female presence is required for a sense of normality?

Before Morgana had arrived in Camelot Arthur had sensed that there was something missing in his family, something wrong, or off? At around the age of six summers he hadn't really understood why he had felt that way?

However he had a memory from that age, of a day where he'd snuck out of the castle and joined the stable boys in a rousing game of tag when a homely port but altogether jolly woman had come and fetched the boys from their play for supper. She had been the stable boys mother and being a kind soul she had noticed him and assuming the worst welcomed him into her home to join them in a ' _happy family dinner'_. Something six-year old Arthur had yet to have experienced at that point in his young life, having always been brought his meals to his rooms.

He couldn't remember the dialogue. Nor what the meal entailed per say. All he really remembered was the warm _feeling_ in the air as the mother of the family had bustled around her little cottage cheerfully. He recalled how she had wacked one son with a spoon when he had reached for a hot bun to keep him from burning his small hand. He could still see the moment her husband had come home and she had merrily greeted him with a kiss as their children had both made disgusted faces while Arthur had simply stared, for that was the first time he'd ever seen such interaction between two people. He could relive the laughter he had shared in with the husband and his sons as she had made jokes when they all sat together at the _round little table_ munching away at their meal, and to this day he would never forget how _pleasant the_ whole atmosphere of that tiny peasants house had been.

Nor how heartbroken he had felt when his own father had finally tracked him down later that evening and come to take him away.

He hadn't wanted to leave, and he'd never been allowed to see that family again.

Why, was never quite explained to him, but he could guess propriety had something to do with it or maybe just petty jealousy? He recalled how he had spent the following day asking his father questions such as, " _Father why don't we eat together? Or father did my mother make food? Father would my mother have hit me with a spoon? Father can we have sticky hot buns? Father what does it mean when someone's lips touch anothers? Father why don't I have a brother? Do you know any jokes father? Father would you like to come eat with me in my room?"_

In response to his questions his father for one week hadn't spoken to him. Not a single word and then suddenly like _magic,_ Morgana had arrived.

He'd never told her, but the first time she had eaten with them had also been the very first time that his father had ever joined Arthur or even asked Arthur to dine with him too.

 _It had been a first time for all three of them._

She had been the catalyst for their one small _family_ practice.

 _Dinner together._

It had been the reason why he had been able to love her so quickly, she had somehow, ' _magically'_ brought his aloof father closer to him. A low sad chuckle tried to escape his throat as he thought of how often they had joked during those first and many to follow meals, that she was in all but blood his sister when all along unbeknownst to them, she truly had been.

'The creator of everything must enjoy irony,' he decided bitterly as his mind churned over everything once again, ' _All the more reason why I must find her.'_ He promised to himself, quietly, ' _I want to tell her that. I need her to know.'_

She had **not** been there during Cenred's invasion with Morgause.

A fact that he had yet to decide on being a curse or a blessing.

Instead he'd had to watch in trepidation, from his hiding spot with Merlin as her name had been tossed around between the two would be conquerors like a piece of meat between dogs.

Those two sorry excuses of humanity fighting over Morgana right in his father's horrified heartbroken face! God above if he shut his eyes he could still see the blond sorceress Morgause in her shouting match with a crown stealing, Cenred. Her loud outraged words still ringing in his head like a bell toll as she declared his ' _newly revealed sister's_ _ **magic**_ _'_ and her natural rights to the throne and how the revelation broke his father. Putting the once terrifying King Uther into a state of shocked sputtering stupor of petrified confusion. While Cenred the 'ass' had threatened Morgause that Morgana's position, like a common broodmare, would either be in his bed to give him an heir or dead in the ground, if the blond didn't watch her self!

Rage briefly flickered over Arthur's countenance once more, he could _feel_ his knuckles clench tight like they had been that very night over that particular 'threat' by Cenred. If it hadn't of been for Merlin's frantic whispers in his ear, there was no telling what he would have done in that moment. Luckily the scum who had once been named Cenred wouldn't be given the chance to enact his plans on his _sister, yes his sister,_ anytime soon, thanks to the valiant work of Lancelot, Merlin and Gaius.

'Served him right!' Arthur thought savagely, he only wished it had been him who had cut the bastard down but his father had needed his dire attention. And perhaps things had turned out for the best in that regard, after all Cenred had been killed, the _Cup of Life_ was now secure in the vaults below and although Morgause had escaped with her parting words, "It's only begun!" and was still at large, she didn't seem to want his sister anymore dead then he did.

Perhaps once they caught Morgause they could through her find Morgana?

His poor lost and confused _magical_ sister.

' _Is it strange, Morgana that all I really care about, is whether or not your still alive? Would you say I'm foolish? For wishing, that you were here safe with me? So that we could talk, so I could just, have you with me. How I could have used your support these past months, or your clever counsel. Oh God my family…Gods Morgana…why?'_ he thought sadly _._

The stinging burn of tears forming behind his eyes was a familiar sensation now, it had started the night the truth of Morgana had come out and though they had never fallen during the event nor did they now, they remained there right behind his eyes, bothering him all the same. He wasn't sure if it was manly pride or just a lack of will, but the tears just wouldn't fall? They were just stuck there behind his eyes, distorting his vision but for some reason he just couldn't let them fall? In the black parts of his soul he admitted if only to himself a fear that should he let those tears fall, then it would mean the worse had come. That once again he had lost a family member.

' _Ha. What's the point of holding back now though? I'm loosing one anyway,'_ he reflected scathingly with dark sarcasm.

For was it not so?

A year may have gone by but the damage was done.

Morgana's fate, magic or no, remained unknown and his father as the days had passed had turned into nothing but a mere shell of his former self. At first the people had thought it was only shame the king felt for having failed them in protecting them from Cenred's forces. Particularly for the day after their nightly take over when Cenred had ordered his soldiers to fire upon the innocent by standing citizenry of Camelot, murdering children even. However, as time moved forward and the truth of Morgana's paternity became clear it was then presumed that it was grief coupled with even more shame over the lost of Camelot's ' _hidden magical princess',_ that had brought the king so low?

Arthur knew better though. He and his father had always had a tumultuous turbulent relationship even at the best of times, but they were family, they shared a connection, and he understood his father better then most. At least he liked to think so?

He would admit to himself that there had been a time when Arthur would have treasured to know the fact that his father was capable of guilt. That underneath the façade of indifference there was a human being capable of flaw. Such a discovery could have once put him in a celebratory mood, he may have even give Merlin the day off he always promised. The thought bringing a brief lightness to his aching heart before reality took it away quickly as it had come.

He sighed to himself forlornly. The reality of seeing his father brought down so low, humbled him in a way he hadn't thought of before, it had shown him that all men, were just that, men. It had opened his eyes and finally plunged the hard fact of life in that his father wasn't only human but subject to all the same rules of mortality that he, in turn Arthur was. That they were all capable of error in judgment that they could all every person each suffer from grief, and the cruelty of making poor or misleading choices.

Everyone could feel guilty.

Everyone had, could or would make mistakes.

Being a king was no exception to this.

So maybe that was why he was praying right now?

Maybe that was why he had gone and chosen the unthinkable and could only hope that if it all went well that his father would forgive him?

He was dying after all.

His father was dying.

Just dying.

No fancy blade work being done upon him on a field of battle with some outrageous opponent, like a giant goliath. No majestic tournament duel gone completely, haywire. No foul plot at play…well…there was the assassination attempt earlier by those rotten circus performers. He would never trust a troop of clowns again as long as he lived, but still. There hadn't even been a wayward spell cast by some evil _sorcerer._

No his father was just lying there! Dying. Not even a strange _magical creature_ was within rangeee…uh…. 'Darn It!'

Thus it was that _Prince Arthur of Camelot_ found his thoughts come round in a full ugly awful circle.

'What was I thinking? What? What was I thinking?!' chanted the ongoing rant in his skull as he stared at his once proud father now struggling to breathe because of that evil entertainer's knife.

In a really sick way this situation could have made Arthur laugh his royal pratty ass off, if it wasn't so gut clenching soul ripping tormenting on him overall. Yes. He could have laughed in a hysterical high-pitched manner at this whole terrifying affair he found himself in, if it wasn't happening to him, but it was happening to him! And curse everything he just couldn't!

After all, his father was lying there, right next to him, in bed, dying.

Dying.

Death. The end of life. Finite!

That's it!

No more living.

It was strange to Arthur how one minute his brain could process it, understand it, and then in the blink of an eye, it couldn't. It was too hard to comprehend. Too hard to adjust to the pain that the one parent he had left, the one family member he had tried so hard for, in so many ways to prove himself too, was just going to leave him.

Forever.

With so many things left unsaid, and misunderstood, it just wasn't fair, especially when today, today above all rotten days, it had seemed like for the very first time in a long time his father was reaching out to him. Just as a father.

To celebrate his birthday! _His accursed birthday! His goddamn 'happy' birthday!_

" _It's not fair! First my mother, my sister and now….? Damn it!"_ hissed his dismal thoughts.

There was so much that he, still wanted, no needed from his father. So much he wished to explain and even yes still desired to ask. Like forgiveness and reassurance, for one?

Now Uther Pendragon was dying and in desperation Arthur had done the unimaginable.

He had gone to the one thing that in an ironic twist of fate his father had despised most of all to save him.

 _Magic._

 _Sodden Magic!_

The word alone had brought upon Arthur's life more trouble then anything else in the entire kingdom. Scratch that make it the entire world! It had caused him countless problems. So why? Why was he risking _this?!_ It was madness!

He had gone mad, it was a reasonable explanation he could allow himself to accept.

After all within the past four to five years alone he'd had to face witches, love enchantments, monsters in the castle like that thing in the water? ('What had that been called?' he wondered.) Beasts out of the castle like those giant spiders when he'd tried to save his friend, that weird fiasco with the Troll woman who'd nearly become his step-mother above all things! Lord the smell alone had stunk up the castle for weeks! The goblin that had possessed Gaius and given him wretched donkey ears! Those meddling sorcerers in the tournament like the ones who impersonated two knights, that snake shield thing? Those terrifying wyverns at the Fisher King's realm, which nearly made him 'soil his armor!'

Then there was the mess with the druid boy Morganahad taken a shine too, poor miserable little chap.

And oh yes!? Lets not forget there was of course _Morgana_ herself!

All those strange nightmares that had tormented her now made perfect sense didn't they? It was all thanks to blasted bloody _magic_ wasn't it!? In the privacy of his mind he wished he and the kingdom had understood or known about her magic a little more while growing up, to think of all those banquet instances growing up where she had made a dramatic scene, much like she had when they had gone to hunt the questing beast on the stairs, could have been reasonably explained!

He could see himself now alternatively telling the visiting lords from _Kent_ , "Yes that's right. That is my _sister,_ Morgana. Yes, she does have dreams induced by magic. Gauis told me she was a _seer_? What that entails I'm not sure but her behavior is entirely understandable under the circumstances. Is it not?"

If there existed a spell for time-travel then after the sorcerer healed his father, Arthur would have him sit down and teach him how to use it as his first magical decree so that he could say that to the one time visiting Lords of Kent in place of what had been said. Saving him a great deal of misery.

However that would require more _magic_ wouldn't it _!_

 _Magic._

 _Magic._

 _Sodden ..effing..blasted…MAGIC!_

He was developing a migraine the size of a continent that was certain.

Morgana wasn't even the end of it though was she? If anything he decided she was more like the crux or the garnish on the cake!? There had been a whole other pile of shite long before Cenred's take over with the _Cup of Life?_ Hadn't there?

For starters there had been magical mazes, the assassin from Odin, that poor pretty shape-shifting girl in rags? The sight of her bones twisting sometimes made it to his own nightmares as did the howls she had made once she had become that cat creature?

Cornelius Sigan's Tomb being opened had been a 'joyful' occasion thanks to his own blunder over trusting Cedric instead of Merlin, leading to those gargoyles that had almost succeeded in taking his and Gwen's heads off!

Oh and before he listed more there was of course Morgause still largely at large and before her that so-called Nimueh witch he still wondered about at night? Whatever had happened to her? Nimueh just seemed to have threatened him and then disappeared? Arthur wasn't one to look a gift horse in the mouth, he wasn't going to complain over her vanishing act, it's just he liked to think that she'd lost interest and traveled far far far, far, far, far away where they would never ever meet again.

Probably not true, but it was a thought that made for better sleeping at night then the idea that she was just out there amongst the bushes of the _Darkling Woods_ waiting to pounce upon him. At any time, any moment, magical wands in hand, on any day, any day at all, waiting for him. . ….. ? . .

..?

.

Yes. Right. Better to think Nimueh and he would never cross paths again and that she had sailed far across the sea to become a shoemaker or something. A most agreeable, reasonable.. possible. . . professional explanation.

Completely probable…..

Definitely likely…

..

.

!?..

.

.

What else had caused him trouble with magic?

Lets see, of course there was the questing beast, (that had been frightening), giant man-eating rats, (that had been disgusting), cockatrices, the griffin, ghosts in his childhood, the walking dead. Thinking about those made him fidget in his seat, 'One does not forget walking skeletons any time soon', he reflected moodily.

Speaking of the dead there had been the undead and that sleeping spell? (He still owed Merlin a good slap for that time.) Ah yes then there was the living dead like the Black Knight or had that one also been undead?

Come to think of it what exactly was the difference in regards to that anyway?

'I mean undead is dead but not dead and living dead is also dead but not dead right? Is there actually a difference or is it just a different name for the same thing?' he pondered momentarily. One of these days he really should get to the library, and ask Geoffrey a thing or two.

Oh and last but certainly not least there had been the bloody sodden _Dragon_ for mercy's sake!

Sweet lord above the first night that creature had attacked Arthur really had soiled himself a tiny itty, bitty bit. (Which no one. No one would ever **ever** know.) The shear power alone of that looming monstrosity had been unquestionable and as the flames it had spewed fell from the sky like hot battering rams its might had forever made a life long lasting imprint unto his brain.

Which was that _Dragons_ were nothing to mess about with!

Lord that huge soaring animal had frightened him more then he could say, and after the first week he really truly had thought they would all end up burnt to a crisp.

How he had supposedly killed it he would never understand? It was the one thing he really deep down had a hard time believing himself. It was just so surreal?

What's worse is that over time, a terrible thought had begun to sneak over him in regards to that particular set of memories. One that he quite honestly pushed as far back into the corners of his mind as he possibly could in order to ignore it, because he wasn't sure of what it would mean if it was true or how he was supposed to react or deal with it?

Arthur swallowed again as his mind came back to the present, his eyes glancing briefly over at the shuffling hunched red robed figure across from him in his father's chamber.

His gaze then switched back to his father, who was lying quite pale upon his bed and breathing unsteadily, his brow covered in sweat, as he struggled to live. Arthur clenched his hands together to keep them from shaking as his thoughts went to that time during the dragons attack which inevitably brought the root of his deepest suspicion and most troublesome thought to the very forefront of his mind.

There had been only one hope to stop the dragon during its fierce some attack on Camelot, one hope to save them and that had been the man named _Balinor, the Last Dragon Lord._

 _A man who had died in his all but unspoken, best friend, soul-brothers, arms much to both their anguish._

 _His friend and manservant Merlin._

 _Merlin who had faced death with Arthur more then any of his men could count._

 _Merlin who had never cried or shown fear, over the death of plenty a Camelot knight during a raid or bandit attack despite having known them just by living in the city, but who had openly deeply wept and sobbed over a man that they had only just met?_

Arthur was not a fool.

Nor was he blind. It was true he was often preoccupied with himself and the matters of the kingdom that his father entrusted him with, but this didn't mean that he didn't notice things.

Nor was he forgetful.

Quite the contrary in fact, he had an excellent long-term memory, it was just that he didn't like to dwell or harp over things. The philosophy he tried to live by was steeped in moving forward, because if you spent too much time on the what if's then you could miss out on the happy moments life willingly thrust before you, like for example his first kiss with Gwen.

If he was a person who dwelled on things all the time, then he may not have been able to obtain the five seconds of courage it took to touch her lips with his. A blissful gift he would surely have regretted missing should he have been too caught up in the risks of what he was doing, lucky for him though that hadn't been the case.

He had simply chosen to act rather then ruminate.

Now in reward the two of them shared a stupendous refreshingly honest (albeit secret) relationship, and he had someone with whom he could finally wholly trust.

He was proud of that, but his relationship with Gwen aside, it did not detract him from one of the biggest puzzles in his life.

Which was this: ' _Why had Merlin cried so hard over the Dragon Lord_?" thought Arthur, " _Why did my friend act so stand-offish during the search to find Balinor? How was it that Merlin and I survived the Dragon's final attack but I came out of it lying on the ground battered up like a rag doll while he was….unscathed? His clothes only slightly singed?"_

These questions raced in Arthur's mind like a ripple across a lake. A lake that on the surface looked innocent enough, it's surface clear and quiet. Simplicity at it's finest. Nothing mysterious, nothing unusual, just an ordinary quiet lake, similar to how Merlin was just an ordinary run of the mill servant, his truest and best friend in all the world, but a simple peasant lad by birth.

'The truth about Morgana and father's deteriorating health must've affected me more then I thought because I can't shake this idea?' Arthur reflected in agitation.

He ran his hands through his hair as his migraine kicked up a notch.

" _I never knew my father_ ," Merlin had said.

" _Fine…I'll tell you…(heavy pause)…I'm worried about..everyone back home_ ," he had said, the lie Arthur could practically smell, but he had been too chicken to push on it, in fear of overdoing it, cause Merlin could be so ridiculously sensitive!

The looks that had passed, between _Balinor_ and Merlin, when they thought, he wasn't around watching close by?

" _You did it. You landed a fatal blow,"_ Merlin had told him, his unusually bright crystal blue eyes once again filled with t _ears_ , as Arthur in a state of hysterical relief and joy had easily swallowed up what only now three years later made in places no sense whatsoever!

…

.

'Am I missing stuff or am I just trying to see something in someone that isn't there? At this rate I'll end up as paranoid as my own father. Lord knows I'm already half way there...Sigh…Maybe, I'm over thinking? Trying to turn a _Lake_ into an _Ocean?_ ' thought Arthur cynically as he stared at his hands.

…

..

.

.

" _ **Shallow waters run deep un ifanc," came the whisper of a deep feminine voice.**_

.

.

"What?" Arthur asked aloud startled as he sat up ramrod straight!

"Milord?" replied the old sorcerer calling himself Dragoon in question.

"What was that?" asked Arthur his eyes traveling the room in lightning speed.

"What was what?" replied Dragoon in confusion.

"Did? Didn't you say something?" asked Arthur eyeing the rooms only doorway.

Nobody was there. The door was closed.

"No?" replied Dragoon as one hairy white eyebrow lifted itself in amusement.

"Your sure?" asked Arthur fretfully, someone had definitely spoken hadn't they?

"Of course I'm sure. I'm old not amnesic! Quit distracting me! I need to focus here," demanded Dragoon in an irritated elderly huff.

"I could have sworn," mumbled Arthur as he let the old man's haughty behavior slide for now and tried to preoccupy himself, with scrutinizing the rest of his fathers room. 'I really am becoming paranoid aren't' I?' thought Arthur pessimistically.

Shadows dimmed and flickered across the hanging tapestries with only the sound of the old man's movements for background noise as he prepared his herbs for his spells. Outside the moon shone full and bright against a myriad of stars that felt closer then usual to those who walked beneath them.

The horses in the palace stable were all _eerily_ enough standing awake perfectly still, their heads all facing the same direction as they stood attentively waiting; but the stable hands were all fast asleep in their beds at their respective houses, too far away to bear witness to the unusual sight.

In the corridors and halls of the palace silence pervaded the air. Deep in the kitchen where the chef snored, the mice that had been scurrying around the floor stopped running even as the cat that had been chasing them paused above them only a millimeter away. Retracting it's claws, it's yellow eyes glinted in the darkness as it cast it's sharp gaze over its furry brown shoulder at the open corridor leading to the kings suit, its ears pressed back and it's fur sticking on end.

'There would be no more hunting mice this night,' it shrewdly thought.

For the guards on the night watch and the sleeping maids in their dormitories everything was as it should be, no one had been spotted sneaking around the palace. No alarms would be ringing anytime soon. It was for once a peaceful night in _Camelot_.

Yet, Prince Arthur's mind was ill at ease. He couldn't relax.

'Maybe it's the old man's ritual?' he thought with anxiety. The old man had set to burning the herbs and the smell of incense was a little potent for Arthur's taste. However, even that couldn't distract him from the feeling that _something_ was happening?

Why did he feel as if there were _eyes_ watching him from the far corner of the room, where nothing but an empty chair his father preferred, sat shrouded in darkness?

'I really must be going mad,' thought Arthur as everything appeared, as it should.

" _ **Caw**_ **,"** came the unexpected comment causing both Dragoon and Arthur to jump a bit out of their respective positions in surprise. Together as one the two looked over to see the only small open window in Uther's room being occupied by a very large great _black crow_ that had decided to perch itself there, like it owned the place.

"Well, there's that voice you were looking for," snarked Dragoon gruffly, at a surprised Arthur as he went back to work ignoring their fine feathered intruder.

Arthur stared at the _black crow_ with its twinkling beady black eyes. "What the hell's a bird doing there?" squawked Arthur indignantly, like a puffed up rooster. If that thing left any droppings in his father's chambers, Arthur would never here the end of it!

" _ **Caw.**_ **Caw.** _ **Caw,"**_ replied the bird right back, with what Arthur could have sworn was a, 'Wha's it too you, goldilocks?' sort of attitude, causing Arthur to puff up even more and glare harder at it.

This course of action was then followed by the bird giving Arthur a nice sight of its' very handsome tail-feathers, and another cheeky, " **Caw!"**

Nobody showed the _Crown Prince of Camelot_ such blatant disrespect!

Not even a bird!

Secretly glad for the distraction, Arthur immediately got up to go scare the thing off, but instead of flying back out the window like a good 'iddle birdie, the crow seemed to take great amusement at Arthur's actions, letting him know by raising it's small black feathered head in challenge and letting out a few more, definitely (Arthur could tell) mocking caws!

" **Caw. Caw. Klack. CAW. Caw. Klack. Caaaw. CAW! CAAAW!" went the crow.**

"Right. Back outside. The King's chamber's are no place for the likes of you, feather bag!" snapped Arthur.

….….

"Did ya hear that gran?! What kind of a thing to say to m'beautiful self is that!? Oh. We've got a lot of work cut out for us wiv this one," said _High Prince_ _Diaval_ of _Annwn,_ as he eyed Arthur from head to toe mischievously.

"Diaval," warned the voice from the occupied chair in the corner of the room.

"What? We've been 'ere ten minutes already, I don't think they're gonna notice us anytime soon gran, might as well be part of the furniture," retorted Prince Diaval.

"Diaval," stressed the voice again mildly.

"Huh. Oh don't look now, gran, but it looks like I spoke too soon, goldilocks is gettin his knickers twisted up cause he senses us. About time someone did. Startin to feel a little left out," said Diaval, "even if is just sitting around a dingy old room like this? Where's a dustpan when ya need it? Look at these cobwebs. It's Filthy!"

No response was given.

"Although I've seen worse, member when you sent me to visit Aunt Macha? It was nothin but skulls and bones and mud for weeks. At one point I started to think m'own flesh was falling off, what a time that was," said Diaval as Arthurs eyes landed on him again.

"Are you certain he's not m'brother gran? He's look-in right at me?" asked Diaval for the fifth time, "and he's even glanced your way. Not many mortals pick up on you. I can't even remember the last time that 'appened?"

"Yes Diaval, _Rwyn'n sicr,_ I'm certain," responded the elegantly horned figure, " _Yn wir_ , it has been a long time since a child of _dyn,_ sensed me. It is thanks to your brother, much of his magic has ..woven itself around him, protections spells I believe."

"Really? Huh," replied Diaval thoughtfully as he took in his disguised 'younger' sibling, "Do you think it's the aging spell or is he just …being thorough and moving slow on purpose?" asked Diaval worriedly.

Unseen oceanic eyes rose heavenwards as if to ask the fates for help.

"I mean s'okay, but you know some Dragons are a bit…slow. Like really slow," stated Diaval again a little more worried this time.

"Diaval, would you mind.." began the female voice.

"I can't have a snail for a brother!" shouted Diaval in dawning horror!

"Diaval!"

"I CAN'T! I won't know what to do? Brownies would of gotten the job done by now!" complained Prince Diaval, " _Arawn's Mighty Antlers!_ Even turtles move faster! Now what's he doing with those twigs again?!"

"Diaval stop working yourself up into a dither!" commanded _Queen Badb_ mildly _._

" _Fey_ don't use twigs?! Well, unless for decoration? Maybe, in place of silverware, which reminds me, hey gran did ya know that Aunt Macha eats _eyeballs_ on sticks during Samahin? Oh! Is Blondie e're a cannibal? Are we dealing wiv cannibals gran?"

A small-exasperated groan escaped _Queen Badb's_ lips.

"Oh I got it! He's gonna turn the King into an _Ent_ isn't he!?" squawked Diaval perking up a bit with enthusiasm as he glanced at the still very much un-wooden King Uther, "Hm. Well, no wonder this is taking so long. Hasn't even sprouted any leaves or roots. Do ya think I ..should…. " but whatever the _High Prince of Annwn_ had to suggest next was interrupted because Arthur had finally reached the window where Diaval was perched and begun to wave his hands enthusiastically at the shape-shifted _Fey Prince_.

For his part although highly affronted at being 'shooed', Diaval simply gave Arthur a few more, well deserved insults via ' _ **caw**_ _'_ and flew up to a beam in the room well out of Arthur's reach. Whereupon he gave the glaring blond a few more sights of his beautiful tail-feathers just to jape him up!

"Diaval, _fy annwyl,_ that is not very polite," reprimanded his grandmother with a muted expression from her corner in the shadows. One fine elegant eyebrow arched in disapproval.

Diaval, though still in his crow form, felt his cheeks under his feathers redden a bit at her words, so with an embarrassed cough he simply said, "Aw gran. Having a bit of fun tha's all. Goldilocks looks like a boggin doesn't he, all that glaring can't be good? You think his eyes will get stuck like that?"

A soft sigh was given in response.

"Ya know gran he reminds me of that imp who once got stuck in the palace, stealing your prize candied chestnuts. Whatever h'appen to ole Binns?"

"Diaval, _annwyl,_ if you could find it within yourself to sit still quietly I would appreciate it, if not I will make you. _Yn glir_?" warned _Queen Badb of the Immortal Fey_ softly as she kept her attention fixed on her youngest of kin and the one that fate had chosen for him to protect as guardian. Her eyes shining in the darkness like cut diamonds, as she absorbed every detail she possibly could about them, doors and paths opening and closing in her mind with every seconds passing.

"This will require a delicate touch," she thought to herself as she breathed in their aura's, both of the young males ironically enough were steeped in equal amounts of fear, although they tried to hide it well. Fear of themselves was the most dominate nuisance that would have to be nipped in the bud as was their fear of each other, but there was also a strong fear of failure.

Underlined by a fear of the unknown that she had expected yet she could already guess would frustrate her in the future when solving. Still considering how young they were she was not surprised on the contrary she was intrigued by the situation, "Like tiny saplings just breaking the surface of the earth, where as I am an old great oak," she mused thoughtfully with a rye little smirk.

The lack of faith in their choices coupled with all the fear made for an unhealthy brew. Ah, but she had been given less to work with before and dealt with much worse in the ages gone by. Nor was she unprepared or ignorant of her newest charges history. Ever since the time her youngest of kin had begun to form in his mother's womb _Babd_ had been keeping tabs on him via her crystals and other sources. Before he was even born she had been made aware of his 'existing spark' by the very core of the _Underground_ and what his birth would entail for all the rest of the _First Kind._

She had been watching him for years through _tree, stone, flower and river._ Listening to his heart's cries when no one else was around him, his _soul_ _songs_ ringing to her all the way into the depths of the ancient tides of _antiquity's shore_ , though he was still bound to his mortal cocoon and she to _Annwn never able to cross the Borderland boundaries of the Moor, since the time of the first, Diflannu._

Dust danced a little in response to her frustrated thought.

 _How she had wished she could have broken free of Arawn's mighty laws so that she could truly bond and harmonize with her youngest kin. So much comfort he could have had. Alas. There were some things that even 'Time's Children' could not change._

'As it should be _,'_ she chided to herself, 'Now though, is not the hour for inner reflection," she paused in her thoughts as her eyes gleaming from the shadows noticed how the candles around the room had begun to flicker by an unseen magical air. The shadows she was using to cloak herself momentarily twisted in response to a sudden call that to her was as frail as a newborns cry but was steadily trickling into a collected river of a deep strong masculine pitch, with a voice like a cavernous echo.

Outside playful clouds grew excited and decided to come closer down to earth to inspect what was going on, their enthusiasm grew when they recognized the _young one's_ essence in work, (having been called by _him_ before), in joy at once again baring witness to the actions of a _First Kind._ Happily the clouds let loose a beat of thunder and a loud clapping of lightning that startled poor Diaval, who had been pruning his feathers out of boredom!

"Ack! **Oi!** Gran! Wha' the devil is that flock of riff raff doing ere! Spookin a chap like that!" he squawked, "Trying to clean m'beautiful self up and clash! What is it wiv clouds?! If I get one drop! One drop of water on m'lovely wings I'll put those .."

" _At last he begins, Diaval_ ," interrupted _Queen Badb_ as she stood from her chair in one swift move, power emanating from every pore of her pearlescent skin, from the top of her sharp mighty black horns to her unseen toes, her own magic rising in a soft gentle wave of warm anticipation.

At his grandmother's posturing, _High Crown Prince Diaval_ appeared to do a complete one-eighty in personality, instantly calm he became all business. Gone was the tom-foolery that he was often known for and in it's stead was one who was _second in command._ Here was a being that once had _led spies & armies alike_.

His dark eyes still held their natural state of mirthful cunning but there was a sharp lethal focus pouring out of them now, that perhaps had been there all along deliberately veiled?

"Diaval. Your younger _brawd_ , must be broken in gently, as his _Mam_ asked. Thus, I have decided that we shall do this the long way. Surely you have noticed the necklace the _pitw,_ Uther wears?" asked _Queen Badb._

"Aye," answered _Prince Diaval._

"Good. Then you have guessed what will happen?" pushed the _Queen_ seriously.

" _Ydy fy Frenhines._ His mortal healing magic will fail. _"_

"Diaval _fy adenydd._ Stand ready, but do _**not**_ interfere when his ' _mortal coil'_ _ **breaks. Like all of us he must cross the threshold alone & unaided, so too must he complete his first 'Sillafu gan'. His first 'Spell Song'. After this great act is done and only after he has finished 'Moving the Stars' may you reach out to him for the first time as a fellow Fey & Kin.**_ **"**

"What of his charge, _fy Frenhines?_ "asked the _Prince._

"Arthur Pendragon, was chosen to be protected by _Fey. Not since the time of Rhiannon's youth & brave Pwyll has this occurred? _Therefore, whilst you help your brother with his _transformations_ and his new state of being, _I_ shall get to know this…..' _dafaden or_ _ **wart**_ _'_ a bit better," proclaimed _Queen Badb_ strategicallywith an arched eyebrow.

"So…were _disguising ourselves even after tonight, then?"_ checked _Prince Diaval._

" _Why yes, annwyl,_ we are but not entirely, no, only enough so that we don't cause _too_ much of a stir. Although? Hmmm.." Queen _Badb_ paused for a moment as she brought one elegant finger up to her ruby red lips as her thumb touched her chin. In a second those lips twisted up into a grin that would have sent imps running, _"_ You've given me an idea. I believe Camelot could use some new _visitors,_ why it may even do the populace good to have say.. some ' _ **surprises**_ _.'_ After all…' _ **it has been a dream'**_ since last we were here," said the _Queen_ with a gleam in her eye _._

 _Prince Diaval_ grinned, his night black feathers puffing up in approval, _"Aye that it has Gran. Very well, as you command slow, human and my baby brother's helper it is, fy Mawrhydi."_

"Good, remember what I said _Diaval,_ ready yourself, _"_ and with those words the two _Fey_ fell silent as the youngest of the three in the room began speaking ancient mortal words of magic. His mortal power peaking to extraordinary heights unheard of by wizards and witches, yet nothing more then a child's to the beings who had gone silent in their watchful anticipatory alertness, " **Efencume... ætgædre, eala gastas cræft ige gestricaþ þis lic forod"** young oblivious Merlin intoned desperately.

 **Above the Stars began to dance while the planets waltzed.**

 **An Age of Absence was ending.**

…...

" **W** hat is magic for?"

It felt like he had been asking that question of himself forever, more specifically he was wondering 'what ' _his_ ' magic was for?' So many times had he thought he had finally gotten a decent answer, and so many times had it been proven wrong or seemed incomplete, or inadequate? As if the answer itself contained a personality and was purposely eluding him, just to spite him?

A faint groan that was more of a harsh gasp for air pulled him back to his current surroundings. His 'old' disguised hands twiddled with the sticks and the incense again, objects that he was just using for show really. He had wanted to appear as ' _mystical_ ' as possible to Arthur so that his friend wouldn't be able to recognize him as easily. The second reason for the twigs was that he was hoping to 'kill two birds with one stone', Merlin didn't know much about the druids but he knew that they often used incense in many of their rituals, by appearing more 'druidic' and by healing Arthur's father at the same time, he would not only show what good magic could be used for, but also restore the druids standing in the young lords eyes!

It was a brilliant little addition to his performance if he said so himself, but now that his plan of action was underway he found he couldn't really take as much joy in it as he had hoped.

He was after all about to heal the _King_ , with _magic_.

Nervous didn't come close to how he felt right now.

Uther Pendragon. The man responsible for killing his kind, the man responsible for his mother's loneliness and his own father's grief, the man who had caused him a life filled with torment & fear was lying on that bed right under his gaze, dying.

In some dark part of him, that he would never acknowledge to anyone, Merlin felt a sliver of smug satisfaction at seeing the _Purge King_ brought so low. Much to his own shame he even felt a dark coil of pulsing gratification that such a sight was his to savor and remember at leisure. The irony of it, that out of all the magical beings  & persons who had tried to kill the king, it was he, the one who would save him, who **had** saved him, that got to see him suffer so.

Oh what a sick smug writhing warm plump feeling that both tickled him pink and made him want to vomit in self-disgust, lord how it sat there gleefully squirming within him as did the stark white contrast of its alternative.

Bile rose up his throat at the duality interlacing inside him. Somehow he managed to swallow it down, as his mind reeled again in rich delightful loathing, while his heart churned in utter fretful confusion as absurd sparks of guilt flared.

He noticed that his hands were quivering a little but from what?

Excitement or agitation?

His sparkling sea blue eyes lifted from the twigs he was holding back to the bed where lay without a doubt the greatest quandary he suspected of his entire life. 'How?,' he thought as he watched the man struggle again for air, sweat pouring from his brow.

" _You've shown most extraordinary loyalty beyond the line of duty."_

How do you describe the feeling of sympathy or pity for one whom you hate?

One who has wronged you in nearly every way humanely possible and yet gained your respect?

How does your enemy even gain respect?

" _I'm glad."_

'How?' he thought bitterly.

" _I wanted to thank you personally."_

How do you explain to people the feeling of holding admiration for someone who at the same time has gained your complete abhorrence?

" _You feel your child's every joy, and their pain, you watch their failings and you see your own. All you want is for their happiness, for them to escape the sufferings of life. Why? Why is this happening? I would do anything."_

How would he or could he ever explain the contradiction he had become?

" _You're protecting the King!" shouted a young man so very much like himself._

'How?' or better yet he thought, 'Why?'

He despised this man. He hated this man. Loathed him. He took a sick seething pleasure in seeing him struggling for air, and yet? "He is just that…a weak, old mortal man," thought Merlin _Emrys_ , "A sad, lonely, pathetic, pitiful old man, who has made mistake after misguided mistake, all while trying to be the best King to his 'people' he possibly could be, never realizing how much wrong he truly has committed. A truer sod if ever there was one."

Was it sympathy he felt?

Or was it his famous forgiving compassion that Gaius always claimed he had that made him look upon _Uther Pendragon_ and not only feel the sadistic pleasure, he kept shut away in his heart, but an actual pang of sorrow even a tremor of grief for the damn man?

Merlin shut his eyes.

Sometimes he worried for his own sanity. Sometimes he felt odd, like he didn't fit his skin? Or.. no, no that wasn't the right wording for how he felt, how could he describe what he was feeling when he felt like he didn't understand it himself? How could he explain that it was especially moments like the one he was in right now, the important moments of his life, that made him feel the ' _oddest feeling_ ' the most? How could he explain that some days he felt _ancient_ , older even in his mind then his silly disguise as Dragoon, older then the hills or the trees of Camelot and entirely separate from everyone around him!

Growing up had not been an easy thing for Merlin. Having magic had not made it any less troublesome, however, the sensation he was trying to put into words right now, (now above all times), was one that he felt didn't have so much to do with magic as it did his very …. _existence?_

The best he could do was to use images, senses, tastes such as: _Dark black water coming alive under a heavy storm, tiny flowers blooming despite a frost covered earth, snow resting on pinecones before it melts, vegetable roots carving their way into the ground, the way Arthur's sword sings in the air while he swings it, the smell of the chef's cooking and the soft taste of the bread she gives him, Gwen's lilac perfume, as her sun-kissed hands catch water in the light by the local pump, the sound of Gaius chopping herbs in time with a heartbeat, majestic wings that flap hard as the wind presses itself to him from all sides, the knights laughing into the long hours as the tavern bell chimes, the dew covered grass as his face once more meets it, his mother's spicy hugs making him feel safe and the saltiness of the tears of his foes as they fall to the ground, once more making him feel rain. Rain. Beautiful Freya's silky hair, her body growing cold as ice, pain, pain with more rain, as another lies growing colder by the second. More rain falls but his insides burn…_

 _Burning. Burning, water deep boiling ocean water pulls him, pulling him down until he forgets he has limbs, forgets he has flesh, all he feels is water, all he hears are echoes and voices, songs being sung to him from the ground, the trees, the seas, songs in the very air he breathes._

 _The crow in the room makes a sound, "_ _ **CAW.**_ _"_

He opens his eyes.

For a second he's lost himself and he feels as if the room is spinning or is it the earth? Something.. something in his head was is.. _crying_ , _coaxing,_ even _begging him to listen_? He feels stretched or the need to stretch? He stumbles a bit, glad that Arthur is too preoccupied with the peculiar crow that has somehow managed to get inside the King's chamber to notice his small spaz attack.

'Steady there Merlin. Get it together. Focus,' he scolds himself, as he tries to shake away the _vortex of singing leaves,_ from his mind. He takes some deep calming breaths, while he waits for his friend to return to his seat, 'Tonight. Tonight, I change things forever. It's my turn Arthur, my chance at last! I will show you magic is good! **I must! I WILL.'**

He had seen too many people die. He had stood by and watched his fellow magic users be punished for a crime they couldn't of helped. He had lost friends, loves, opportunities and family. A thousand times over while he had attended Arthur from counsel meetings to feasts had he endured hearing his people or people like him, spoken of with malice and hate. He had lost his own innocence. _Blood on the ground._ Committed murder. _Blood in the water._ Become a liar, a hypocrite, a thief, and even a soldier all for a dream of peace that he finally knew could not ever fully be guaranteed?

Not without sacrifice.

 _Blood on his hands, staining him, until it bled right into his very skin._

Now though, just as doubt had begun to sneak once again into his heart via his despair & desperation, was a time come at last to show his closest friend the one truth he knew without question.

 _That Magic is a gift._

 _Magic is a force like nature that can be used for many things._

 _It is not evil._

 _Only misunderstood._

Uther was cold, cruel, flawed and unworthy of what Merlin was about to do. Yet it did not change the fact that his son on the other hand was. Arthur Pendragon was a good man. A few years ago Merlin would have had quite a hard time believing that the young blond sitting across from him would have become so dear to him, or so admired by him?

Sometimes it still surprised him, how one minute Arthur could be such a prat and then shift the next minute into someone Merlin considered to be a _brother._

Speaking of said ' _brother'_ Arthur had finally returned to his chair by his father's side. The blond had an odd look on his face. One that Merlin had never seen on him before, and it touched something in Merlin's heart, as cheesy and 'girlish' as that sounded because Merlin knew exactly what Arthur might be feeling right now.

'What is magic for?' he asked himself again as the memory of his own father's fate surfaced the edges of his mind.

Suddenly Arthur took to standing up, his movements tight and fidgety. He was irritated and frightened, observed Merlin. "Big brave warrior," thought Merlin a little sarcastically with just a touch of bitterness. Normally seeing Arthur so worked up would have made Merlin smile with mischief but too much could go wrong.

'Everything depends on tonight,' he thought taking a deep breath as slowly he began summoning up his magical energy. It sparked and crackled inside him over the surface of his skin. Outside he heard the distant thrum of thunder, and briefly wondered why out of all the elements _lighting & rain _were always so eager to answer him?

Shaking his head a little of his wondering mind, he quickly set it into a deeply honed focus, 'No mistakes. There can be no mistakes.' He had stalled long enough it was time. He took one final bundle of herbs in his now completely still hands for show and turned to face his most treasured friends bright eggshell blue eyes gazing into his own ocean blue with unconcealed wonder & uncertainty.

'Funny how we both have blue eyes?' thought Merlin off hand, as he felt himself finally calm under Arthur's incertitude. Once more Merlin questioned his own sanity? Normally one was suppose to share & grow uneasy when a friend was starting to panic weren't they? However, over the years it seemed he had developed a weird reaction to seeing Arthur in a frenzy, instead of joining in the fuss Merlin found that when witnessing his friend's agitation he grew alternatively reposeful?

In some cases even playful? Which at least explained half of his never-ending repertoire of banter. Still it was a slightly disturbing realization about oneself, but perhaps it was not entirely his fault? He suspected that it was largely due to the fact that he had lived a life of anxiety for the most part, in having to hide his magic, from everyone he ever met. So when finally coming face to face with another person having a melt down, it became a very relieving thing for him. Words like, 'Thank god I'm not the only one with junk to deal with!" would often blare across his head like a soothing tranquil trumpet at the sight.

In retrospect though, Merlin had come to appreciate his 'cool-headedness' as he called it, because without that instinctual reaction he doubted he would have survived all the incidents he had. He could just imagine what a disaster it would have been if he had lost it when facing Cornelius Sigan for example, or any other prick that had dared to inflict pain upon his home.

Yes. His home.

An image of all his friends, flashed across his mind, from Gwen's smiling face to even the Head Chef's, and he felt himself swallow.

Camelot was his home.

Had become his home, through literally his own sweat, blood and tears, and he would be damned if he let anything happen to it now, even if it meant saving the _Purge King._

Merlin straightened himself up. He took a closer step forward, when Arthur made a sudden cry, " _Wait."_

" _Is something wrong,"_ he asked his friend who was sweating enough for the two of them.

" _My father's taught me never to trust magic and now I'm using it to save him,"_ replied Arthur quick and bluntly as if he were making a report on a battle yet his voice held a note of guilt, that Merlin easily detected making the sentence sound more like a confession of a crime? 'Perhaps it was a confession of sorts,' Merlin shrewdly thought as he felt his response to that automatically leave his tongue un-checked, _"Your own life has been saved using magic more times then you can possibly imagine."_

" _What on earth are you talking about?"_ snapped Arthur immediately. His blue eyes quickly fixing right back onto Merlin's figure like a hawk's on prey.

'Shite!' thought Merlin realizing his error! He quickly thought of what to say to steer Arthur back on course and away from questions that would only lead to more questions and much worse, discovery!

They both weren't ready for that conversation.

Arthur's wary cautious eyes sizing him up right now were proof enough of that. Merlin began to feel like a hare trying to squirm out of a trap after being caught. Arthur's eyes bore into him like a lost little child's who desperately sought answers from the only adult they suspected would even try giving them the truth?

'The truth,' Merlin thought sadly, 'In the end that's what it always comes down to with you isn't it, Arthur?' as words his own mother had used to teach him about himself, fell from his lips like cascading droplets of water, _"I merely mean to say that magic is all around you it is woven into the very fabric of the world."_

'How long have I wanted to say that to someone?' he thought as a chord in his heart rung out like a forlorn lonely little bell chime for both himself and his friend. The fact stood that Arthur was always being lied too. By everyone in the world it seemed. First by his accursed father, then the staff, the council, his sister followed by the knights, and the servants, primarily though, painfully so, by Merlin himself.

He was a liar, a fantastic one.

Even now Arthur was being lied too. _Especially_ now, after all it wasn't Merlin who was trying to heal Uther, was it? Nay. It was _Dragoon the Great,_ an imaginary man, a fabrication, a mask, all so Merlin could hide. Not because it would put him at risk to expose himself. Not because he would face unspeakable danger, hell he'd face far worse for the very man who was putting his absolute faith in him now. For the only man Merlin had come to love, yes love, like family and god what was he doing? Oh yes. Ha.

He was lying.

Lying because if he told the truth….well…

He knew the reason why. The real reason and it had nothing to do with magic.

It didn't take a genius to predict what would happen if Arthur ever found out the truth in the wrong way, look at what had happened when the circumstances of his birth had been told to him? Arthur had nearly murdered his own beloved father, and if that wasn't enough look at how he had reacted to Merlin's friend _Will_? Or how Arthur was currently silently negatively coping with the revelation of Morgana's magic?

' _Morgana….' Thought Merlin with a pang of something in his chest? The image of her dark hair shimmering under moonlight, her sparkling emerald eyes shifting from gentleness to anger then to fear crept in his mind as a memory of her small pretty little hand reaching out to touch him once upon a time...'NO! NO!'_

' _NO!'_ Merlin nearly screamed at himself in frustration. This was not the place for thoughts of her! There was business to be done.

'Liar I may be, but I'll be damned if I don't focus on the task at hand proper. Arthur's giving me the 'your crazy look' enough already tonight!' he thought harshly at himself.

" _How can I be sure it's the right thing to do?"_ came Arthur's unexpected quiet question, halting Merlin's trapezing thoughts like a blow to the skull.

'What a thing to hear?' thought Merlin for it was the same question he had been asking himself for years. A small sigh escaped his lips.

Heavy silence fell upon the room. Shadows and candlelight danced across the walls, briefly making Merlin feel like he was underwater. While outside one of the guards had started snoring. The air in the room was filled with the scents of burned pine & cedar wood, and a flash of lighting could be seen accompanied by the echo of thunder from the small little window, where once again that odd pesky black crow was sitting? Pruning its feathers, seemingly indifferent to the humans nearby. For a second Merlin felt an odd urge to take a closer look at that bird? As if there were a _string_ being tugged from deep within him and a voice coming from it that said, "Look at me! Look at me! Over here idiot!"

For now he chose to ignore it, still he kept feeling the need to _scratch_ or _look behind him_? If he hadn't warded these rooms himself when stepping into them, he would have sworn that there was someone else in here _watching them?_

 **I know you I walked with you**

 _Something or someone ..strong...oddly …familiar…no…new? Staring at him..._

 _ **Once upon a Dream**_

 _Growing closer to him…lulling him….wrapping itself around him?_

 _ **I know you that look in your**_

 _Trying to comfort him…Almost on top of him…inside him!? Singing to him!?_

'Where's that music coming from!?' he realized, forcing his body to stay still.

Arthur was still watching him waiting for an answer.

Alarmed Merlin quickly flicked his eyes around the room as he stretched out his magical aura at it's maximum. He paid closer attention to the energies flowing in the air both inside and around him, yet whatever he thought he had felt or heard, wasn't there?

'Could have sworn I heard someone singing?' maybe Gwaine was right, he needed to relax more, after this perhaps he would finally treat himself to a long deserved night at the tavern.

Still a little on edge Merlin gave himself a mental pat on the back for comfort. He could feel through what he considered his 'magical senses' the sharp taut pressure in the immediate area that he knew as the buildup of his own magic and it was quite a lot of power. Perhaps he'd overdone it. Magic left to linger tended to start acting on it's own accord if enough of a quantity was left in one place. Currently the room was like a dam of power that he had constructed like a mad beaver within the last fifteen minutes and only needed just one good command before it would finally spill over, or more practically speaking was siphoned into a set purpose, such as healing Uther.

Not the best explanation for what he was doing in here perhaps, but it would do. Now for Arthur's question. How was he to answer? What should he say?

He looked into his friend's rattled eyes and he could have laughed at the obviousness, he'd tell him the truth.

For the first time even if under a disguise he would tell Arthur the whole truth.

" _I know you have suffered because of magic, as many have, but not all magic and not all sorcerers are the same. I wish only to show you that magic can be used for good. I hope one day you will see me in a different light."_

…***...

" **D** id ya see that Gran! DID YA SEE THAT! H'ere I was thinkin m'brother's a blind slow ole turnip head and then that! He caught onto your _cloaking spell_! _He even heard the song! The_ _ **SONG!**_ _!_ Ho-oh! It really has started asn't it!" chirped Prince Diaval in ecstatic delight, " Wait till this is over! Just wait! Not even mad ole Aunt Macha can do that! Oh the fun me and m'iddle brother..will.."

"Diaval, hush," interrupted _Queen Badb_ , a pleased smile upon her own face.

***************************************************************************….***

" **T** his is it, " thought Arthur, "This is really happening. I'm really doing this."

Arthur couldn't breathe. His brow was dripping with sweat, as if he'd just come from a tournament or fought another griffin, "Oh god please. Please don't let this be a mistake. Please. Please."

" **Efencume... ætgædre, eala gastas cræft ige gestricaþ þis lic forod"** intoned the old man, who Arthur suddenly found both intimidating and frightening.

Gone was the decrepit weak senile nutcase who had piggy backed his way up here to his father's chambers with him. In his place was an ancient red wearing mystical _sorcerer_ whose eyes were glowing the brightest _gold_ Arthur had ever seen!

They were like two small suns, ' _Magic!_ I'm using magic,' he all but shouted for all of Camelot to hear! Why did he feel like crying? He felt like reality was breaking, or maybe just his reality. What would this mean? What would he do if this worked? What would he do if it didn't?

Why was he so damn frightened?

Now the old chanting man seemed like the stuff of Arthur's nightmares!

'Lord above my whole life, I've secretly questioned this,' he thought, prayed, 'Now with my father's life I'm gambling! Lord. God. Please. Please.'

He so badly wanted to trust the sorcerers words. He needed those words to be true, but this was proving to be so hard? Why was this so difficult?

The air in the room suddenly sprung to life! For one brief fraction of a second Arthur felt a warmth of _something_ spread through his entire body, he gulped down the irrational fear! A loud " **CAW!"** came from the blasted sodding crow! He could feel himself struggling not to hyperventilate! 'God,' he thought. As a clash of thunder and lightening sounded and somewhere close to him he could have sworn he heard a female voice whisper just as the old man's chanting crescendo, gently in his ear, " _Un ifanc hawdd. Easy. Easy little Wart. Heddwch._ _ **"**_

Any other time Arthur would have wondered at the voice whispering in his ear or the sudden strange feeling that there was an invisible hand on his shoulder, but right now, the only thing that was penetrating his brain was one simple sentence.

" _I'm so afraid mother_."

Why he thought of _her_ now when he was quite possibly using the very same thing that had been responsible for killing her? Unless, if what his father told him wasn't true? But later when he had spoken to Geoffrey he'd gently hinted? Damnit! Oh god! He didn't know! He didn't know what was true! No one ever told him what was true! Everyone had an ulterior motive! Everyone when it came to _magic_ left him in ignorance or tried to kill him?!

'And for what?' screamed Arthur's mind as his heart clenched in fear, the sorcerers chanting finally coming to an end, 'To take Camelot?! Revenge? Power?! Why? Why? Why God? Why _Mother_!'

He doubted he would ever get a clear answer. All he'd ever really seemed to see or hear of magic was nothing but darkness, depression, and frankly evil incarnate. Which is what he had been raised to believe in and had very well he could honestly say been given cold, solid, proof of for well over the last few years for sure.

But then?

Why? _Why?_

Deep down, in the depths of his soul had he still held all those disconcerting doubts from his childhood?

Why couldn't he harden his heart entirely against it!?

Why is it?

That it always, shocked him when he saw _magic_ being used for bad purposes?

Why couldn't he _truly_ accept it for what he'd pretty much been shown?

Why?

Why couldn't he forget that special set of _memories_ that only he had?

Why did it _excite_ him so?

'Please. Please,' he begged whatever deity was listening as he and the sorcerer looked down upon his father waiting.

The _invisible hand he felt grew far more solid then it should upon his shoulder as if to brace him for what was next._ Arthur knew somewhere that he should be concerned or terrified but _crazy as it was he kept thinking that maybe …just maybe his mother's spirit was here._

Arthur felt a sob get stuck in his throat at the thought, again he heard that harmonious female voice softly whispering into his ear.

 _Almost like it was singing?_

He watched his father like a rigid statue as the special set of _memories_ he had locked away for so long sped across his brain, as slowly his father's face began to subtlety get back some color.

'Yes…Please,' he thought desperately, those _**special memories**_ drifting in..

It had happened …years ago….

So long ago in fact, that it had occurred before even Guinevere and her father had come to Camelot. Way back when he had been no more then a mere seven years of age, before even _Morgana_ had been brought to live with them.

The _**incident**_.

The only _incident,_ where his father _had ever_ admitted to a _deviation from the so-called 'norm' of magic._

He had never been allowed to speak of it to anyone, not even his servants, and his father had practically tried to, ' _beat'_ those memoriesout of him as much as humanely possible. By overloading him with duties and schooling, knighthood but Arthur despite his father's wishes had never been able to forget, what had happened to him, _who_ he had met.

To this day he could still see ' _ **Her**_ _'_ face if he shut his eyes, he could even bring to the forefront of his mind, that unique scent she had and the calm sweet smell of her home. He could even remember the sound of her laughter ringing in his ears, as she smiled gently at him from across her meager kitchen table.

'Blast her. Curse her, but oh god please let it have been true! PLEASE LET IT BE TRUE!' thought Arthur as once again for the hundredth, thousandth time as always was the case with anything relating to the word _magic,_ he saw _'Her'_ in the back of his mind.

The _**woman**_ who had given his childhood self the only taste of what it was like to have a _mother_ , or a female guardian present.

A _woman_ who in only three days had ingrained a place in his heart forever.

 _ **A woman of Magic, who had shielded him from a dagger with her own flesh…..**_

' _Her & the Unicorn,' _thought Arthur, his eyes fixed on his fathers shifting, slightly glowing form, they were the only two encounters he had ever had with so called ' _good magic'_ and in secret all this time against his fathers wishes, hypocritical it may be, he had clung to them as a life-line for just this very moment.

His father's breathing began to steady. The sweat began to recede from his father's brow as a healthy sheen took its place.

Arthur felt a tear slip out of his eye, 'Yes! YES! PLEASE!'

As his father's pallor restored itself, Arthur's eyes flashed to where his wound was, through the bandages Gaius had used that had previously been stained red by a wound that wouldn't heal now, nothing but a light pink was fading!

'It's working….IT'S WORKING!' thought Arthur. Excitement he'd never known consuming him!

The _invisible hand on Arthur's shoulder shifted to his back, as_ in his exuberance Arthur leaned over closer to his 'healing' father!

Uther's eyes started to flutter open!

Joy sprung in Arthurs' heart like a fountain! Like a firework! He felt like dancing!

His eyes leapt to old _Dragoon the Amazing!_ Where Arthur saw a smile on the old man's face that could have echoed his own!

A laugh escaped Arthur's lips, and suddenly the most wonderful thing happened his father's eyes opened, "Arthur?" came his voice.

Never had Arthur known such joy! Never!

Oh NEVER again!

'NEVER AGAIN! I WILL NEVER ASSUME ANYTHING AGAIN! THIS CHANGES EVERYTHING! _MAGIC!_ MAGIC CAN BE GOOD! I WAS RIGHT! I WAS RIGHT!' his heart happily cried!

"Father!" he said happy tears falling freely from his eyes!

"Father!" everything would be all right now!

Yes.

" _ **Cynnal Arthur Pendragon. Hold Fast! Mae'n anorffenedig!"**_ _ **commanded a loud majestic firm woman's voice in his ear.**_

"What?" cried Arthur in alarm but before he could ask, 'who are you' he saw his father's eyes widen in pain!

"NO! NO! WHAT'S HAPPENING?!" he shouted at the sorcerer!

"WHAT'S HAPPENING!?" Arthur cried, as he helplessly watched all the 'healing' come undone, suddenly a terrible choking sound emanated from his father's throat.

Arthur felt his heart break. This couldn't happen?! Why! It? It had worked?

Hadn't it?

Arthur looked into _Dragoon's_ face the sorcerer looked just about as equally terrified as Arthur himself felt? Was not this his doing? His magic at work?

"I don't know! THIS ISN'T SUPPOSE TO HAPPEN!" wailed the old man.

What?

Arthur couldn't think his father was choking on air now, "DO SOMETHING!?' he shouted when all of a sudden Uther made a terrible gagging sound, a trickle of blood left the corner of his lips, and his eyes still staring up at him, lost focus.

Arthur felt his entire body grow cold.

His father right before his eyes….stopped breathing.

….

.

.

.

" _ **Cynnal Arthur Pendragon. Be calm and by Arawn don't move," ordered the voice right next to him.**_

Arthur couldn't stop trembling. Was his mind cracking because what he was seeing couldn't possibly be true? His father could not be dead. He'd just spoken to him? Been recognized by him? This? Ha. This was a dream. Yea. That's right a dream, a terrible one. He closed his eyes, as sobs spilled out against his wishes from his lips.

" _ **Arthur. Mae'n anorffenedig. It is unfinished youngling, (sigh)"**_ suddenly a hand gripped Arthur's shoulder tightly until the pain of clawed fingernails pricking his skin got him to force his eyes open to the worst sight of his life!

"YOU!.." Arthur began to cry maliciously in a red haze of hatred but instead of the sorcerer he had expected to see touching him was…..?

'Who _who?_ _ **WHAT**_ _ARE YOU!?'_ thought Arthur in utter dread.

 _Black demonic dragonesque horns that grew out of a human shaped skull, covered entirely in shadows making its features indistinct and seemingly nonexistent fell within the young Prince of Camelot's vision. Where the horned head was, a pair of astute glowing eyes pierced into him with ever shifting colors so vivid, that he could not tell whether they were green, blue or sapphire? Maybe they were all the colors, so appalled and enthralled was he, he could not say. Although the tall form was unclear he could somehow make out that the creature was female by the flickering candlelight against the darkness of its essence? Curves were outlined and just the hint of a breast, also it moved with a silent elegance he had never before seen, and if this creature were woman or female, then it put all lady's of the court to shame. Just the tilting of its mighty head was a gesture so beautiful Arthur could not help but feel a tinge of appreciation._

 _As Arthur's watery eyes took in this being before him, he noted the perfectly shaped claws for fingernails that it had, particularly on the one hand that still held him firmly in place. Long refined fingers lie upon him and through them he felt a pulsing power seeping from them, making his head spin. While in the other hand away from him was a tall thin black staff, where in place of a jewel at the top was nothing but a glowing fluid like crystal yellow-green orb made out of light?_

 _Before he could blink and as if by instinct his mind thought one word, 'Powerful.'_

 _This creature of magic, for what else could it be? Was powerful._

'What are you?' whispered a frail voice. Glowing beautiful _cosmic_ eyes in a strong angular face turned and gently examined him, 'Did I ask that?' he whispered.

A deep earthy chuckle tickling his skin filled his ears with mirth. The eyes sparkled playfully though there remained an almost predatory edge.

' _ **Why? Ie. You did,'**_ _she_ replied _ **, '**_ Well. Well, Arthur Pendragon, to think **I** had to slow time itself tonight? And so close to my _perthynas agosaf ieuengaf_ during the ending of his humanity and his first _Gwir gan sillafu._ "

Her voice was not just majestic and deep but rich. It rolled vowels as if they were hills and she the wind passing over them, it sounded like a myriad of things? When she spoke each word was the pluck of a well-strung harp, the note of a violin, the _church bell_ ringing. No. More then that, it was a _dove's kiss,_ _the brush of daises, the churn of the sea and the cadence of the tide._ _Her voice was the echo of trees and more._

 _It was the voice of an angel, a demon, a mother, a grandmother, a wise-woman, a daughter, a lover, a mistress, a courtesan, a lady, a princess, a warrior, a priestess, a chief, it was a song, a chord, a voice of perfect harmony and it demanded regality, hers was the voice of a_ _ **Queen**_ _._

 _'_ _ **The Queen,'**_ whispered a little melody in his overwhelmed brain.

Arthur gulped, he felt like he was being consumed, everything was happening too fast? Besides wasn't there something he should be doing? Something he should be upset over? "What?! What's happening? Who are you?" he thought, spoke, shouted?

He no longer knew.

The world was shifting around him, things were spinning out of control! He began to feel dizzy, but he forced himself to stay standing though with her still holding him he doubted he would even be allowed to move much less fall. He felt like a flimsy leaf under her _inhuman_ hand. In wallowing horror he somehow managed to tear his gaze away from the beautiful creature only to be greeted by a sight that befuddled him!

 _Dragoon the sorcerer_ had his hands upon his father's chest pounding madly, and now that Arthur was looking, he couldn't look away even if he wanted too. For the sorcerer was ululating in loud angry chants! Tears were falling from the old man's eyes as if he too cared for Arthur's father? As if it were him who was losing a loved one? Had he not murdered his father?

Arthur's mind did not know how to handle such a sight. In place of thoughts he only felt, there were only feelings, the wall he had held for so long to block his emotions fractured as did his mentality, he did not know anything anymore, but before he could fully break, before his very self unhinged, his head was turned away from the sight by one gentle clawed finger.

"Shhh. . . . Do not despair _bach da_ Arthur. **I** , _Queen Badb_ am here as is _**Emrys.**_ _Be Calm. Wait child of dyn. Wait for the_ _ **stars**_ **,"** _rippled her voice over him soothing him, consoling him, one claw softly brushing the blond hair out of his eyes._

"Emrys?" asked Arthur in confusion, "Queen Badb?"

" _Ie. Un ifanc._ That is my name as is Emrys his," she hummed like a creature of the ocean depths, as it swims in galaxy like waters, "Now. Hush. Watch and listen. Feel them Arthur Pendragon, child of _dyn_ _ **.**_ **For my kin moves the stars for you,"** and with those words and another motherly brush of his hair she turned him back to the sight of the sorcerer.

And while Arthur Pendragon watched as the sorcerer grew more and more frantic he remained as silent as the grave. He did not move a single muscle, even as the sorcerer's chanting turned into a stream of never-ending screams of despair!

He did not move or say a word even when all the objects in the room flew into the air and began spinning like mad tops. Silent and still he stayed even when the room was bathed in golden fire, as the tapestries burned away. Bells rang out all over the city and lightning repeatedly struck the castle, but every other sound was drowned under the sorcerers voice. Which had passed beyond the human range of tongue and gone into pitches no mortal could possess.

Arthur waited and Arthur watched, as the very walls of the room and all the objects inside of it began to change shape and morph. His father's boots sprouted wings, his father's chair grew fur and ears. The walls became covered in skin, flowers, vines, scales and turned purple to harsh magenta?

C..RA…CK…

"NoooOOOOOOOOOOAARRAARRRRRRCCCKKK!" loosed the sorcerer.

Gone was the ceiling. Gone were the tables, the walls the chairs. Arthur felt himself struggling to comprehend what was happening, he struggled to keep his sanity as he watched his father's chambers vanish completely!

In their place were ruins and stairs of a land Arthur did not know. They led every which way and in all directions. There were no ceilings. No floors. Only stars. Space, empty voids and stars. That slowly began to dance and twirl. Arthur instinctually grabbed onto _Queen Badb's_ hand, knowing that should she let go now he would cease to be.

Before him in the very center of it all the sorcerers body began to literally split apart!

Fire, blood, water and sparks of golden light careened out of him at all angles, the sounds he made Arthur could not put into words. They went from the eeriest jarring notes to those of the most sinfully erotic and met in a shrill noise of phenomenal distortion. Then as if things couldn't get any stranger, the magic user's skin began severing apart like torn bits of paper, and the old man chipped away.

Hell the humanity evaporated!

Blood-soaked, grunting groaning, naked as they come, before Arthur's very eyes he watched what had once been human transform into something else. Bones crunched together as they reorganized themselves. New bones and muscles violently flew out in new shapes! Skin pulled and warped in a design that Arthur was only just barely beginning to conceive, he felt the urge to throw up as in a shower of more blood a pair of horns burst out of the poor agonized creatures skull! Arthur couldn't help but gape at the sight, as he watched it for lack of a word be _molded, formed,_ _born anew_?

He did not know, what he did know is that at it's feet was his father's body, and that time and space seemed to have decided to take the 'day off' because he was pretty sure he'd just seen a comet come to a nearby halt and spin every which way he looked including down he saw spinning stars, nebulae's? It was like the entire universe was here in this space all moving at once?

Unable to fathom and wishing not to go insane he glanced back at his father, only to see the back of the now newly formed blood tinged entity that had been the sorcerer.

Arthur's eyes grew even wider.

 _It was male with broad pale shoulders and a tall, lithe body. Golden scales that perfectly meshed with the skin, trickled across its strong back, while two immense large black hybrid feathery scaly wings stuck out of it, and dragged on the ground curled around the figures quivering pearlescent form. Sharp golden horns glinted out of a human shaped head from under long soft pitch-black hair as did pointy ears that would of made any elf envy. Arthur could not see the front of the humanoid figure, but he watched as the 'young' winged horned man held one strong lean predatory arm out before him. Like the Queen's the male's hand had long elegant fingers, moving with the same supernatural grace as she, but where as her claws were red and black. His nails were golden, in fact he was pulsing with gold. His entire form was alit with a dark golden aura of fire, but felt somehow despite its bloody birth, untouched, pure._

It, ' _ **He'**_ , was the strangest thing and the most beautiful thing Arthur had ever seen, and when it spoke for the first time Arthur felt the _**stars**_ _sing, the language unintelligible to the human ear,_ but he tried, he tried to listen, for it, they seemed filled with _awe &_ _rapture_?

So mesmerized was the mortal that he did not notice the _note_ of shock that the other male made nor the twirl of the stars as the heavens laughed at the newest young _Fae's_ surprise!

Too bewitched by his surroundings and the _music of the star's language_ Arthur was completely oblivious to the startled _Fae's_ outright bewilderment of the situation!

For his part Arthur had somewhat regressed in the last five minutes or so back into a child of seven, marveling in reverence at this perpetually shifting world around him? For now there had bloomed silver trees with translucent roses and pools so clean they could pass for mirrors made themselves known! Stars wove their way into his hair and fingertips, teasing him about his carbon solid form, though all their words went over his head.

Nay he could not understand them, but the more he tried too, the less he knew his own language and the more he forgot himself, he simply was. Joy again captured his heart, but it was broken by a spoken word from a voice he knew yet never had heard before?

 _"Arthur!" it came in the waves of water with the warmth of a hearth. While the strings of a guitar made it full and a planets rotation refined it._

The Prince of Camelot turned his head to see what magnificent creature could have made such a sound?

…..

..

.

…. _Concerned gleaming oceans upon oceans sky shaded blue eyes he had trusted with his very life stared at him. High elegant royal cheekbones he had seen every morning were now set in a face that went way beyond possibly girly to down right ambiguous beauty. Funny ears were now even funnier and …_.'OH LORD!'

"MERLIN?!" and with that Arthur Pendragon Prince of Camelot finally fainted.

.

.

The stars laughed.

"Now, that had to've been a record? Woo. Goldilocks sure did better then any other mortal I've seen. Eh Gran?" said _High Prince_ Diaval merrily before he spun around with a coat of feathers and moon shadows, "Finally! Haft to say 'iddle brother quite a show ya gave us! Made m'feathers puff up! Oh! Gettin ahead of things aren't I?"

"Allow me to introduce m'beautiful self. The names Diaval, hello at last!"

 _…_ _..._

 _ **End of chapter one...**_

This is by far the longest first chapter I have ever written for anything. On that note I think I covered things in the Prologue enough. So I'll be brief.

 **Disclaimer:** I don't own Merlin from BBC. Nor do I own Maleficent. This is a loose Alternative Universe Crossover written purely for fun as an enthusiastic fan.

The only thing I do own are the plot twists I created. And orginal characters. Everything else nada, zip zero.

If I could make money doing this I would update everyday, sadly I am poor.

Some things that seem confusing: like the necklace around Uther's neck, if Morgana is good? Are questions that will be answered in the next chapter.

The Fey language is Welsh.

And well on to the next chapter!

P.S. The next update may take awhile. So I hope this tides you over until then. I am working on multiple fics both on this site & other projects so I apologize for infrequent updates but what can I say Life's tough.

Anyway THANK YOU ALL WHO TOOK THE TIME TO READ. HOPE YOU ENJOYED IT! ALL MY LOVE. –STELLA.

.


	3. Chapter 2

_See Disclaimer at End of Chapter…_

 _Merlin: The Heir of Annwn_

 _By: Stella Limegood_

 _ **Chapter 2.**_

…. _.Concerned gleaming oceans upon oceans, sky shaded blue eyes, eyes he had trusted with his very life, stared at him. High elegant royal cheekbones he had seen every morning were now set in a face that went way beyond possibly girly to down right ambiguous beauty. Funny ears were now even funnier and …_.'OH LORD!'

 _ **"MERLIN?!" and with that Arthur Pendragon Prince of Camelot finally fainted.**_

 _ **.**_

 _._

 _The stars laughed._

 _ **.**_

 _ **.**_

… _ **16 Long years ago in Camelot…..**_

He was seven! He was a Prince!

So why did his father insist that he had to ride in the smelly old carriage with the smelly old man named Geoffrey? It just wasn't fair! Every time they went on one of these… what was the word his father had used? Oh yea! One of these, 'treaty' things, which he noticed, never ever actually involved any candy, at all! He was made to ride in the stupid smelly stuffy carriage! How was he going to see the world or be a great King like his Da? If he was stuck in the box with wheels every single trip!

Even Sir Oscar's son Meliodas got to ride with his father on horseback and he wasn't even seven! Meliodas was six! A whole year younger! So why didn't his father let him ride on horseback?

"ZZzzzz" snored the old smelly Geoffrey, as a seven-year old Prince Arthur of Camelot scowled most spectacularly, while the royal carriage moved along its path in a gentle humdrum roll. Outside the window Arthur could hear his father talking with his knights about all sorts of neat things, like tracking or possible bandit attacks! Real ones! Real Bandits!

There are very few things as exciting to a young seven-year old boy, then the possibility of a "real" Bandit Attack, especially to one that is stuck most days inside his rooms all alone with his tutor.

"ZZZZZ(snort)"added said tutor.

Prince Arthur couldn't agree more.

A bandit attack was just what was needed right about now!

Little Arthur's heart leapt in excitement at the very thought as he heard his father, The "Great" King Uther, in his most booming voice tell a Knight named Sir William to scout ahead for any signs of trouble. Nearly simultaneously his father's trusted servant Gaius asked when it was that they were planning on camping?

'Really, who cares about camping?' thought the boy scowling.

'Silly Gaius,' thought Arthur, ' there could be bandits hiding nearby in the shrubbery!'

Arthur could see them now just sitting there with twigs on their heads, those bad bandits! They were out there just lurking and waiting to catch the royal family for supper!

It was just too much! They had to be stopped! It was up to him!

The Prince of Camelot!

He could take on a whole fleet of bandits! Why? Just the other day Cook had said he was the bravest "cutest" (ugh!) little prince in all the kingdoms and that was just for catching a mouse in the cupboard!

Even his father had patted him on the head and told him he was truly the best 'swordsman' in the land just yesterday, when he'd been practicing outside in the yard against Camelot's biggest scarecrow!

Nope.

It just wouldn't do, this sitting all the time in the stuffy smelly carriage. He needed to be out there with Sir William! Out there! Scouting ahead for danger! Catching those thieves for his Da and spanking them for their badness, maybe, just maybe, even forbidding them dessert! Or worst of all sending them to bed with a bath!

Baths! Ugh. Awful.

Bandits couldn't be left to go all over the place like ants. It was against the rules. Just like writing on the castle walls. That settled it. He would have to catch them.

Yea! He could see it now! Him standing in all his seven-year old amazing-ness atop a pile of ugly dirty fat old warty bad guys! With his own shining suit of armor and a mighty steed!

His father would be so happy with him! He would give him one of his smiles!

His Da… didn't smile a lot. Arthur had begun to notice this, particularly on this past trip, especially in contrast to Meliodas's father. Meliodas's father Sir Oscar had smiled a **lot** and even played with them in the courtyard the other day in a game of tag.

His Da…had never played tag with him…

His Da…hardly ever smiled?

His Da…never wanted to spend much time with him.

His Da…didn't …didn't do much of anything with him?

.

.

.

.

.

But, but, maybe if he caught the bandits?

Yea. Yea!

It was decided! First though he had to get out of this dumb carriage!

Young Arthur took a few moments to figure out how and when exactly he was going to be able to actually manage his escape from 'cargo imprisonment' when fate decided to intervene.

Unbeknownst to the young prince, Sir William had returned to inform King Uther of his findings. As the knight made his frantic report to his King of _Dark Strange Sightings_. Uther called a halt to the party's progression.

So it happened that while the King of Camelot was being informed of his nearby surroundings, his seven-year old son managed quietly, as only little children can. To sneak open the one unguarded side door of the royal carriage, and with his tutor deep in the hearty throes of "Mighty Morpheus" utterly oblivious, young Prince Arthur made a clean get away! Out into the foliage of what would later be known to him as the _Darkling_ _Woods_ , unnoticed by all!

And the young Prince Arthur's absence would remain unnoticed until about six hours later when Geoffrey of Monmouth would awaken from his involuntary nap to a most frightfully terrifying situation.

.

.

.

.

Alternatively for a young Prince Arthur, it had been his very first venture anywhere in the world entirely by himself! Let alone to say in the forest, and it was magnificent!

All around the young child was the lush vibrancy of the world of nature, and as the young prince went further and further away from the safe embrace of his father's entourage he came across rabbits, squirrels, foxes, even a gigantic fearsome badger!

He saw the greenness of large Ankerwycke trees and smelled the deepness of the wild honeysuckle and the world glittered to the seven year old as the way nature does to the young. It was beautiful, new, fun and it was _free_. But it wasn't too long before the little seven year old finally made his way over to a log by a nearby pond and had to take his first break from his bold 'noble quest'.

Bandits apparently were better at hide and seek then the boy had thought?

Who knew?

He made a promise that he would inform his father of this information, for more accurate bedtime stories to be made.

Still, missing cutthroats aside, Prince Arthur was having quite the time of his life. Now that he was faraway from any of his father's watchful servants eyes, Arthur found he could get away with quite a bit, such as picking his nose for instance, a very important activity indeed! He could also go jumping in a few mud puddles near the pond's edge! Which he most certainly did! Better still, he even got a hold of a frog! And after naming him 'Sir Fred' decided to keep him in his best trouser's pocket and no one was there to tell him he couldn't!

It was wonderful!

"Rrrrribbbit!", 'Sir Fred' agreed.

It was enough excitement to keep him from paying attention to his little legs, which were starting to bug him, there was just too much yet to be explored!

Little Prince Arthur kept wandering onward in a merry little jig that turned into a rather spectacular game of hopscotch with 'Sir Fred' before he even thought of going back. So he pressed on, the thought of home fleeting and besides he still had yet to find those bandits for his Da and bring them to justice!

Maybe if he caught a lot of bandits, his Da would be so proud of him that he would let Arthur into his secret council meetings with all the other older knights?

Maybe now after today his Da would teach him how to ride horseback?

Maybe his Da would play knights with him?

Maybe his Da would smile and say he _loved_ him just like Sir Oscar had for Meliodas?

He hoped so.

Oh he hoped so!

After all, finding bandits, was turning out to be hard work, "Where are you?" shouted a young Arthur in annoyance after having passed a giant large oak tree for the third time in a row.

"Rrrriiibbbit," added 'Sir Fred'.

"Maybe…the bandits can't hear us Sir Fred? What do you think?"

"Ribit."

"Your right Sir Fred, we should try over there!"

"Ribbbbit," croaked Sir Fred, in complete accord!

Young Arthur walked on an on, until about five hours had passed when the little lad got rather tired of trying to find the bandits and in a very grumpy mood stomped his small foot on a _mushroom ring_ patch, and decided it was time to go home. Mumbling to himself as he trenched along, a rumbling tummy added it's two cents to the situation and a few blisters bloomed on his tender feet causing the child to become quite cranky.

But as little Arthur tried to find his way back, much to his young hearts dismay he discovered an unfortunate thing as most lost children do. . . He couldn't seem to find his way back or anyone else around?

Suddenly being alone for the first time in his life without even a chambermaid close by was well a little daunting for the boy.

In fact after a few well-placed shouts of, "Hellloooo!" with no reply little Arthur began to realize that no one was around to answer him!

Possibly no one would talk to him ever again!

Panic started to take hold of him.

Where was everyone?

Where was he!?

"Ribbit," Sir Fred was confused too!

He didn't know where he was!?

The carriage was gone! Everyone was gone! Gone!

He was lost!

OH NO!

"Da?" whispered the frightened child as darkness fell upon the world and with it the once beautiful woods transformed alongside the night sky into something alien and utterly spooky.

 _ **It would be years until Arthur would later come to realize and know just how lucky he truly had been, to survive that day he had wondered alone, into the woods.**_

He would remember, that as night had fallen, he had broken into a full scale run!

His little seven year old mind terrified as the tree branches turned into dark looming claw like hands and eyes gleamed out of the bushes and brush from every direction like evil demons come to steal a child away!

"DA! FATHER! FATHER! PAPA! PAPA!" Arthur screamed as his short little legs tripped over a branch, sending him soaring through the air, into a bunch of old knarly black rotting tree roots. That was when Arthur had begun to cry.

It wasn't fun anymore!

Where was everyone? Why was he alone? It was so dark!

' _I'm scared! Papa I'm scared!'_ the child thought as he cried.

He didn't want to be alone!

"DA! DAAA! FATHER! FATHER!" he wailed allowed his young heart hammering in his tiny little chest when suddenly he heard a deep noise from behind him…

 _ **Even 15 years later no beast, save one..**_

 _ **Would ever frighten Prince Arthur as that looming presence had that dark night.**_

 _ **Not even the questing beast had shaken him so.**_

 _ **Nay, he doubted any other creature of magic could scare him as**_ _ **that one**_ _ **had.**_

 _ **He could still smell it fifteen years later in his nightmares.**_

 _ **He could still feel the cold clench of fear consume him….**_

 **D** ark fur as black as shadow, enormous paws with sharp gleaming red glittered claws padded the hallow ground. Claws that could sunder the very earth, large white teeth stained red from other prey dripping with saliva and blood. It's mouth opening to shred him too, with an ungodly stench of disease and rot. Two enraged boiling red orange slit eyes, narrowing at him as it began to stalk towards him. Snarling at him with a predator's hate!

The fully grown _Demented Dire Wolv_ had not taken well to the accidental intrusion the young child had made into it's territory, it howled it's rage to the blackened sky, but the seven year old trembling prince had yet to learn the manner of such things, learn though he would.

For in a split second with little Arthur having no time to truly think, as frightened of the towering five-foot beast as he was, the _**Wolven Beast of Old**_ attacked!

Claws suddenly fell upon him! Black fur matted with dirt & decay smothering the child as the boy tried to push it away! Blood. Pain. Snarls and growls. Sharp red stained teeth and his own screams as he felt his skin being torn!

That is what Arthur would forever remember.

That is what years later Arthur realized could have ended him.

 _ **Had she not appeared..**_

 _ **Yet she had. . . .**_

"GREAT **FEY OF ANNWN!** BY **RHIANNA'S 'EART!** OFFA IM! YE FOUL **BEASTIE**! AWAY I SAYS! **AWAY!** **BYDDWCH YN MYND! BE GONE!"** cried the crackly croaking voice of a woman who in contrast to the sound she made appeared to be in her late twenties to early thirties.

With some unknown force that young Arthur couldn't see clearly, blinded as he was by a bloody scratch above his eye, she single handedly threw the _Beast_ off of him! Then in between her palms she brought forth a few orbs of sparkling blue light that she shot at the monster in hasty succession that sent the dark hungry thing running with it's tail between it's legs! Having then defeated her foe _,_ she rushed over to where the little Prince lay bleeding and knelt down next to him, her hands glowing with a sparkling white blue light, as she gently took him into her long bony arms.

 _ **Her face was not what Arthur would, even years later call 'pretty' especially by society's standards, but at the time and even still in the corners of his heart…**_

 _ **She retained her title as his beautiful childhood**_ _**savior.**_

Her hair was dark brown in color with multiple strands of grey, and she had a large bump on her crooked nose, her teeth were not very strait. Although it was hard to tell in the dark, but by the light of the next day he would find one tooth even hung over her lip with a sharp tip?

Her ears had been oddly shaped, and stuck out from under her hair, which was also long and soft to the touch. Her asian-esque shaped eyes were a golden hazel and she had upon her, two moles on her right cheek of her round square jawed face. Yet despite her rather interesting exterior, her smile had been so gentle as had her hands that little Arthur had only found her wonderful, especially after being nearly killed.

Indeed as a speechless young child, Arthur had just lied there in her arms, the woman had sent waves of healing magic upon him, as she spoke frantically to him with her 'hag like cackled voice',

"Oh Oh! Ye poor l'iddle mite! Wha? In the name of m'ighty Arawn iz a l'iddle one such as ye doing all by yer lonesome out ere? I've a mind to turn ye _mam_ an _tad_ into a pair of toads that I do fer sure!"

She exclaimed in maternal indignation as she carefully but pragmatically went about checking Arthur from head to toe for more injuries, her glowing wart covered gentle hands brushing over his skin as she healed him wherever there was even the smallest bruise, much less scratch. Her claw like nails pushed aside his golden hair as she inspected his head much the way a mother primate does for ticks, as little Arthur tried in vain to catch up to what was happening to him?

However, his first near death experience had been too much for the child so instead of telling the 'nice wart lady' who smelled of… _gooseberry pie_? To stop playing with his hair, he instead had begun to cry.

"Awww. Aw. There. There. Iz a'ight my l'iddle d'affodil. Listen to Mam Baba Yiga now. Iza gonna take care of you. Aw. Hush hush. Don't cry _fy un bach_. Hush there. Hush. Say? I thinks I ere a grumbling tummy? That I do! Come. Come. Mam Baba Yiga take ye h'ome, gets ye fed. _Ie_ feed ya sum nice 'ots newt eye stew! _O ie!_ ," she said as she held his quivering little body to her in a warm hug. Before she picked him up off the ground like a sack of oats and carried him rather lopsided to her small home deep within the _Darkling Woods._

 **H** e would never be able to really remember the journey to _Mam Baba Yiga's_ dwelling. Nor their exact arrival that night at her cozy mushroom covered cottage for it seemed that like most little children after a fright he'd fallen into an exhausted slumber.

What Arthur does remember is the smell of her as she carried him, it was a homey spicy sort of gooseberry smell that could have been associated with breadcrumbs, roses or possibly peppermints with just a touch of lavender and something he still couldn't put his tongue on?

Woodland, muskiness perhaps?

Gooseberries?

Perfume aside, his rescuer's home had been full of oddities & strange objects he hadn't known what to make of come the following morning . . .

In fact the very first thing little Arthur remembers upon waking up, after her rescue of him, is the feeling of warm soft feathery covers lying on top of him? Someone had put a blanket made of pheasant & chicken feathers on him as he had slept?

'Where am I?' thought the little boy.

A glint of light caught his eye, above him and his feathery bed sparkling and gleaming in the mornings early sunlight was some sort of strange thing hanging above him?

"Wow?" squeaked the child as he rose from the nest like bed to get a closer look at the object.

It had looked like some sort of woven band with a plethora of different colored strings tied to various objects from spoons to celestite crystals with a giant dragonfly stuck in the center of it? Its multi-colored wings still beating as it floated gracefully around above him lazily.

'What is this place?' wondered the boy, intrigued!

As the more awake he got, little Arthur's eyes grew wider, hundreds upon hundreds of similarly strange objects came within his sight. There were thousands of the string things? Scattered everywhere from the walls to the ceilings some with lizards, others with feathers. Come to think of it the whole place from top to bottom was littered with feathers, from parrot feathers to peacocks, to one feather Arthur would remember in particular.

It was a brilliant reddish pink, and it _glowed!_ He could only dream of what kind of bird that had come from? Other things _glowed_ too especially under the twinkling mornings light! In fact the whole room was filled with a rich soft earthy creamy daylight!

It was enough to make little Arthur forget the terror of the night before or the fact that he was still quite lost. Instead of feeling homesick or scared he found himself to be feeling safe. Especially now that he was no longer alone and in _Mam Baba Yiga's_ home? His natural curious nature once again resumed and so it wasn't long before he was quietly creeping about the little cottage in playful exploration!

The first room little Arthur entered was some sort of workroom?

It had a low-cut ceiling and the ivy had well worn its way through the walls. There were jars of beetles everywhere but not all the beetles, snails, and other crawly things were in the jars, kept labeled for them? Some of them were crawling on the floor right over his toes! Dragonflies of all variations buzzed around what in place of a desk light appeared to be some sort of giant overgrown poppy flower?

While there upon the oaken wooden tabletop lay thin beautiful tweezer shaped tools with little hooks at their ends, but unlike any tweezers Arthur or even much of man knew as of yet, these were ' _special tweezers'_.

They were so fine that a mortal man would have needed a magnifying glass to see the various different detailed ends each one had. While their entire length was inlaid with gold & silver, and if one had a large enough magnifying glass one would have read the scripted words, " _TO MY DEAR FRIEND YIGA.-THE LADY MORRIGAN OF ANNWN."_

Next to the 'work table', was a very peculiar shaped sort of chair that Arthur found upon closer inspection to be in all honesty one overly sized moss covered mushroom? There were other things like a set of pins piled on the table and a whole vase full of different kinds of sticks but after a snail crawled across his bare toes leaving a sticky cold trail of slime on his foot, Arthur decided to go see what the next room held.

To his surprise the next room of Mam Baba Yiga's cottage was without bugs, but was full of thread, yarn, wool, and cloth! There were three different kinds of looms in it, and all along the walls were shelved spools of every kind of thread a person could imagine! It would of made any seamstress green with envy, and Arthur would never know it, but the worth of some of those spools of silk would have paid for over three kingdom's ransoms. Unfortunately being seven and more of a wannabe knight kind of boy rather then a patchwork quilt sort of kid, Arthur quickly grew tired of the second room and went to the third which much to his disappointment turned out to be nothing more then another bedroom.

Although, it must be noted that there had been an ostrich size egg made out of diamond on her bedside table that had briefly caught his gaze? However, it hadn't been enough to keep him entertained long and so off he was exploring again.

Little Arthur made his way down the spiral staircase of Mam Baba Yiga's house and the first thing he saw…were chickens?

Lots of chickens!

Chickens everywhere!

Chickens Galore!

Crammed into what presumably had to be a kitchen somewhere under the feathers? Were at least fifty-five maybe a hundred or so chickens! There were also plenty more of those strange string crystal hanging things and more mushroom seats, but before Arthur could take another step forward into what was the equivalent of some sort of hodge podge living room, a gigantic feathery faced white rooster clucked at him!

'CLUCK! CUCKKOO! CLUCK!'

Startled little Arthur made a small cry of alarm and fell backwards into a hanging array of pots and pans! Which frightened the chickens causing a miniature whirlwind of feathers when _Mam Baba Yiga_ once more made an appearance, "Wots all the ruckus Rupert'n? Why? If'n izn't the l'iddle mite! Bless ye this fine morn m'good boy!"

"Um… good morning milady?" replied a rather put out seven year old suddenly finding himself to feel rather shy, amongst many a feathery fowl's eye. After all what does one say to the person who saves them from scary monsters and has an army of chickens in their kitchen?

"M'lady, oh ho ho ho ho. Did ya ere that Rupert'n I'z a Lady I'z is," laughed Mam Baba Yiga as she slowly made her way into her little kitchen plucking & chucking hens to and fro as kitchen utensils suddenly whirled in the air as if with a life of their own!

"Now then, me l'iddle _dyn_ , we've a said good morn whicha means it must be time fer Break'ast! Howza bout sum Oats! Come. Come Sit ye down ere then _crwt._ Rupert'n moves ye arse! Outta that char or Izza gonna turn ye human!"

'ClUCK A DOODLE DOO!,' went Rupert'n the great white rooster as Mam Baba Yiga let out a sigh, "Don't mind im lad. Ee youse ta l'ive wiv an Elf King? Pfft. Got it in ez head now e musta be royal too! Pfft. As if!"

"CLUCK. CLUCK. KOO! DOO!" let out an offended Rupert'n.

"Oi! _Cuddiwch ef! Rwyt ti'n ymlacio pluen plu!_ Take this ye royal bum!" and suddenly there was a yellow bowl that floated down and scooped the recalcitrant "royal" rooster from his favorite perch and sent him out the window into what was Mam Baba Yiga's front yard.

Little Arthur's couldn't help but giggle at the sight! His eyes widening at the constant flow & sight of all the _magic_ being used around him!

It was amazing!

'Awe. There'sah good s'ign tha. A giggle like tha should be let out fer allll the world! Why I'za bet _Lady Morrigan_ 'erself, bless her soul abundant, be filled with joy at it. Tha' I do," stated the older woman as she began setting a place for the two of them to eat.

'Who is _Lady Morrigan?,'_ his young mind wondered before it switched and honed in on Miss Yiga's prior threat of turning the rooster into a person, 'Really!? Can she?' he thought.

"Can you really?" he asked shyly as he nervously held the ends of his shirt in his little fidgeting hands, before being distracted by a floating tea-kettle passing over his head, and what appeared to be an argument breaking out between the spoons & the forks?

"Canz I wha?" asked Mam Baba Yiga as she poured some oats into a pot which with a flick of the wrist & a snap of the fingers was suddenly filled with water and had a small fire underneath of it.

"Turn the rooster into a person?" replied Arthur as he sat himself onto the wooden stool nearest her, of what perhaps once upon a time had been Miss Yiga's kitchen counter? It was hard to tell between the bugs, the stubborn remaining chickens, and the parade of kitchen utensils now heavily engaged in an all out war to rival _The Battle of Versailles_ with the mice, and what once upon a time may have been a … _dishcloth?_

 _._

 _._

It seemed a Plate was trying to negotiate terms?

Clearly it was failing because it came back covered in mouse droppings.

The sugar bowl, the kettle and the rolling pin were absolutely livid!

.

.

As the 'living' cutlery continued it's determined assault this time on the napkins, little Arthur found his eyes drawn elsewhere? More crystals and some strange fungal plants were growing along what appeared to be the wooden cabinets? Then blossoming spontaneously into jelly looking flowers, before peeling away from their perch and floating on into the woods? Which speaking of the woods brings us to an interesting fact about Mam Baba Yiga's home?

For as Arthur sat down and his eyes spun around the entire dwelling it became rather apparent that although upstairs had been strange but close to a traditional house, the ground level of Mam Baba Yiga's home was missing something rather vital to most homes… walls?

Correction.

There was on the one side by the stove and staircase two walls. They formed a nice corner and kept the upstairs supported. Yet they were the only dark walls to be found under the green ivy & other growing foliage across the domicile, on the other side pass the giant leaves that made up her living room and what looked like more mushroom chairs was what seemed to be a door constructed out of more ivy and then there was nothing.

Nothing.

Just big wide-open outdoor spaces where a garden stood with thousands of more 'Doo Dads' of those same 'string things' Arthur had seen upstairs? They were tons of them hanging all across the woods nearby?

"Ho Ho Ho. Why of course I can! I'z _**Mam Baba Yiga**_! I canz do m'ucha more then turn ole Rupert'n into a man! Ha, that I canz! Now tell me luv does ye like yer oats warm and soupy or mashy washy?" asked Mam Baba Yiga as she eyed the little human child squinting at her home curiously, 'What a l'iddle darling,' she thought.

"Um..mashy washy? Please," answered Arthur suddenly very hungry.

"Aight then, ere we go luv," said Miss Yiga in happy approval as she poured him a warm bowl of oatmeal and one for herself before handing him one lone 'deserter' spoon, "Digs in! Ho. Ho. Can I turns ole Rupert'n human, what a question, ye asks? Why m'boy If'n I'z try ard enough I can turn'em into an _Elf_ imself! Oh yes! And tha's not an easy trick no sir m'iddle blond duckie!"

"Woowww!" replied Arthur! This was definitely the most interesting person he had ever met! Not even smelly Geoffrey with all his books knew how to do that!

Arthur's tummy rumbled.

"Best eat it, whilst it's h'ot luv!" suggested Mam Baba Yiga gently, as she dug into her own. Arthur eyed the oatmeal a little suspiciously at first but after one tentative bite and with Mam Baba Yiga's happy gurgles of pleasure as she ate from her own bowl for background noise he quickly began stuffing his face as fast as his little arms could!

It was delicious! It was full of cinnamon, blueberries and other fruits, all very pleasing indeed but it couldn't distract Arthur for long after all this was the _first magic person he had ever met!_

 _ **Already at that tender age his father had begun teaching him that Magic was "bad".**_

 _ **However, surprisingly, Geoffrey had secretly told him a few "fairy tales" and Arthur couldn't of helped being fascinated with them?**_

 _ **After all, what little child doesn't like hearing a story about tiny Elves that sneak in the night and make shoes?**_

"Are you a witch?" he asked in wonder as he swiped his chin with the back of his sleeve, before he took another bite of his tasty oatmeal.

"Well now," began Mam Baba Yiga as she vanished her empty bowl with a finger and with another pass of her hand transfigured a spoon into a cup of warm raspberry smelling tea! Arthur's mouth fell open…oatmeal and all!

Mam Baba Yiga smiled before she took a small sip of her tea and continued answering, "Izzn't tha refreshing being asked direct like that. (chuckle) Hmm. To start's with I must say no. No I'z iz not a witch."

"No?" asked Arthur in surprised doubtful confusion. His awed eyes glued to the magically transformed teacup the magic lady held, "but you use _magic_ , Da, I mean Father says all women who use _magic_ are witches?"

Mam Baba Yiga spluttered on her tea and let a hearty laugh that filled the air,"Oh doez ee? HO HO HA ho ho ho. Hm. Not know mucha bout magic yer father then eh? I suppose, if'n he thinks only witches use it. Why? Witches m'boy barely even touch ta stuff! They's more into the mind and spiritz. . .although a lot depends on the witch erself? Now I thinks on it." said Mam Baba Yiga sagely.

"Really? But then…well what are you?" asked Arthur curiously.

" _Ydy plentyn,_ really. _Tiz a true_. As fer wha I'z iz, why Iz za from the great big _Underground_ , buts I'z a suppose ye could class me az a part _Gnome_ and a part _Pixie,_ " answered Mam Baba Yiga sweetly before a thoughtful expression took her face and she said, "Although whenz I thinks on it sum men's folk use to call me a _Swynwr."_

"A swy..nr?" asked Arthur, before he cut himself off to ask instead, "What's a _gnome?"_

"OH HO HO HO Hoh o! WHAT'S A GNOME! HO HO! Why! Iz za _Gnome,"_ replied Mam Baba Yiga her eyes twinkling playfully as she laughed and teased the young in, "Howza bout yerself? Wha za you?"

"Well," began Arthur slowly as he found the tables turned on him before swiftly answering, "I'm a boy."

"Tha's you iz. So then m'boy youza know Yiga's name, wazza yer name? Iz it Fred?" she asked him before taking another sip of her tea.

(((Sir Fred as it happens was currently outside in a heated debated with his majesty Rupert'n the Rooster over the enlightened meanings of the space and time continuum and bemoaning the fact that neither of them would be able to enjoy a nice cup of coffee for about another thousand years and a few reincarnations later.)))

"No. That was the name of my frog! I'm Arthur," declared the little boy cheerfully, "Prince Arthur."

"Prince Art'ur? Of Camelot!" gasped Mam Baba Yiga in surprise, her tea cup suddenly sprouting wings as pink bubbles rose out of it and filled the room!

"Yea!" squealed Arthur in gleeful delight at the sudden explosion of bubbles.

"OH ZA DEARZ! OHS M'GOODNESS! ARAWN HIS MIGHTY SELF PRESERVE ME! OH'Z M'GOODNESS! OH'Z _**SEREN UWCHBEN!"**_ cried Mam Baba Yiga as she stood up and began scurrying all around the partial room with super human speed as she tried to do what appeared to be ten things at once before reaching her one tiny little window in her one wall and shouting out of it at the top of her lungs, "RUPERT'N WEZA HAVE ROYALTY HERE!"

"Cluck?" replied Rupert'n, confused, before he turned back to the commoner frog, ("Was that suppose to mean anything? There's always been royalty here, I'm here!") the white Rooster's feathers fluffed in indignation!

"Croak" commented Sir Fred, (which was the equivalent of a froggish shoulder shrug, 'Sometimes it's best to say nothing, no good can come from arguing with the crazy ones,' thought Sir Fred as he eyed the perturbed Rooster.)

In the blink of an eye Mam Baba Yiga was dashing about the little cottage at speeds no human eye could hope to follow, in her wake every object began to sparkle anew, every surface appeared to be polished and shined! All the clutter of the house seemed to disappear and in fifteen seconds the place went from looking roughly put together to ornate! The wall covered in vines suddenly burst into a sea of flowers, the mushroom chairs grew and expanded as if they had been made of pillows their tops looking especially fluffy to sit on. Dust bunnies fled for their lives as all the little knick-knacks began to organize themselves into shelves or array themselves as if on display in a shop?

And the strange "string hanging things" suddenly lit around the house, making soft chime noises, freshly clean and _magically_ restrung they glittered sending a myriad of colors into the room and Arthur gasped.

Colors were everywhere and everything sparkled.

It was dazzling!

Like suddenly finding oneself inside a cave full of diamonds!

Even the fighting cutlery now sparkling clean (save one seriously pissed off sugar bowl) on the table, seemed stunned and began the equivalent of bowing in deference to the little boy…although the Plate was having a bit of a tough time of it.

It kept falling flat.

The sugar bowl however did not bow, or kneel.

It glared. It's enemy the dishcloth didn't seem all that impressed either.

Arthur giggled at the moving objects before the glittering colors distracted him again.

"Wooow," said Arthur reaching one hand up out towards the nearest 'string thing'.

"There'z now. So, sorry bout the mess l'iddle Princeling. If'n I'z a known who ye was, I'z a cleaned up sooner. Ah I'z a see ye spotted one of me _Shambles_ , tha's a beauty isn't it. Got the egg in the center just right I'z did," spoke Mam Baba Yiga as she resumed her seat with a quick swipe of her brow. Before she waved a hand and made herself another cup of tea appear out of thin air.

"What's a _Shamble_ _?"_ asked Arthur as he stood up from his stool and walked over to the 'string thing'.

" Ho oh ho. Ho. Tha' right there iz a _Shamble,_ " replied Mam Baba Yiga.

"But?... What is it?" pressed Arthur as his little hands came to hold the thing, his tiny fingers gently trying to cradle the egg & butterfly wings tied amongst the threads.

He felt something like a small pulse coming out of the thing, a funny tingle started in his fingers while the sensation of what felt like tiny water droplets began to crawl up his skin to his little chest? Before the strings snapped and then in a shower of sparks Arthur gasped as it disappeared!?

"It.. It's gone!" he cried in dismay, he hadn't meant to break it!?

Tears began to form in the little boys eyes, as he realized he might have made Mam Baba Yiga angry, but he hadn't wanted to break it!

He'd…he'd just wanted to hold it.

It was so pretty!

Why did everything he want always turn out wrong?

Was it because he was bad?

"(Hiccup) (hiccup) I… I didn't mean it!" he started to cry, when a warm gentle hand brushed away the first of his tears. Young Prince Arthur looked up over his shoulder into the suddenly quite close gentle sight of Mam Baba Yiga's, wart, odd toothed face, joyfully comfortingly smiling at him.

While the child had been playing with one of her _Shambles_ _,_ Yiga had quietly come up to the boy before kneeling down to his level beside him, carefully observing how the child's essence would react to such a powerful example of her spellcraft.

"Full of surprises aren't ye?" she mumbled gently as she brought the l'iddle boy into a hug, "Had a rough time az of late asn't ye? Facing _darkest damned_ beasties, so far from the palace. Aye. Been a rough two days and me wiv all this magic bout ye, and ye from Camelot. No wonders ye eye's are as wide az dinner plates and yer head full of questions. Hee hee. Ho ho ho ho."

There was a sniffle from Arthur, "I did..didn't mean to..break it!" blubbered the little boy.

"Wha? Break it? OHO HO ho ho O dear me! Why? Ye didn't break it!" said Mam Baba Yiga as she wiped more tears away.

"I? I didn't?" asked Arthur.

"Not at all," chirped Mam happily.

"..Oh?..."mumbled Arthur suddenly embarrassed and confused.

"Righ, then. Well, first thing is don't ye worry one cent bout the _Shamble…house_ _iz'a full of em._ Plus I'za only goings to make more, tha's wha I'za do afterall. Why? I'za be the best _Shamble Maker in all the Underground I is_ ," winked Mam Baba Yiga, as she cradled the young one on her knee.

It was time someone with some honesty explained to the child a few things about the world, _Shambles_ seemed as good a place to start as any.

"Listen ere luv," she said as she got herself comfortable in her big ole mushroom cozy chair, the little one on her knee no longer wimpering but looking all the world ready to fall to pieces again in his confusion.

He had such innocence in him?

She could practically taste it.

Not too mention his own little magical _stirrings_ , given time and proper nourishment he could become quite the clever little _magician_. It had been many, many years since last she had taken on an apprentice?

Was this a sign? An omen?

She wondered if her Lady was watching from the Stars?

 _This seemed very much like Morrigan of the Three Sisters doing? It would be something Morrigan would wish, wouldn't it? Her Lady never did like the fact that she hadn't had any apprentices after Princess Nuala. Heck she could practically see Lady Morrigan's golden sunshine light touching the boy? …._

" _I don't believe in coincidence." Thought Mam Baba Yiga_ as she soothed the child and looking into those bright eggshell blue beautiful truthful _honest_ eyes, made in a second an irreversible everlasting choice…

She would teach him what she could, for as long as she could.

"Now then, a _Shamble_ m'luv iza many things and it's can be made of anything. Anything at all. Why even a dirty sock, an ant, and a piece of yer toenail wiv some ratty string do the trick!"

"A toenail?!" the child made a face.

"Oh ie! Toenails and better still the toes too!" teased Mam Baba Yiga as she tickled the boy, Arthur gurgled and laughed, before she stopped and gaining his attention again continued, "We'za use them mostly to help us wiv our many magics & many kindza spells, and even in some cases for our _Caneuon_."

" _Can? Cane…"_

" _Caneuon,_ iza means in the _Underground Tongue_ the word: _Songs._ See deepest, most precious magic. Magics of the heart, magic of the _Stars_ … why that comes through best in _Songs!_ _**Songs and Music they's make the whole world!"**_

"The world?!" echoed little Arthur.

"The world," nodded the enchantress, as the feather blanket floated down to wrap around the child and various items including some laundry started washing itself in a tub that appeared to bend itself out of the ground, and then with a POP! Little Arthur watched as a strange reed like golden pipe appeared and _Mam Baba Yiga_ began to smoke it, and out of her nose came not smoke but small tiny trails of bubbles…

In fact the entire yard seemed to be filling with bubbles, some bending into remarkable animal shapes? The chickens and Rupert'n the Rooster didn't seem pleased as the bubbles and floating soap began to chase them around Baba's yard but with the wind chimes still _singing_ , the light twinkling through the foliage of the trees, the various homely flowery smells of the enchantresses house and _Baba Yiga's_ suddenly mysterious wise almost glowing eyes. Little Arthur was overwhelmed with awe.

Then the sound of a harp began playing…a tune on the air..

And..

 _ **And he remembered,**_

 _ **Yes, he finally remembered what happened next..**_

 _ **There in the bubbles she produced with her golden reedy smoking pipe, a pipe that didn't smoke, in her cottage surrounded by the essence of purest nature, chickens and glowing doo dads she called.. Shambles..**_

 _ **The Bubbles all came together, united, to form one gigantic Crystal Ball floating mid-air and he hears her as she teaches…him…and shows him with the Crystal Ball..**_

 _ **Her World.**_

 _ **The Underground.**_

 _ **Annwyn.**_

 _ **Land Eternal.**_

 _ **More then that, she shows him, They who live there.**_

 _ **She lets him SEE**_ _ **Them.**_

 _ **She lets him HEAR Them.**_

 _ **The ones…mortals dream of**_

 _ **The Fey.**_

 _ **The Tuatha De Danann.**_

 _ **Those Lords and Ladies of the Stars.**_

 _ **The First Kind who sing The World into Being.**_

 _ **Dancing.**_

 _ **Ever Dancing.**_

" **I f…I know you….you'll love me . . . Once Upon …A …Dream…**

" **Tha'z the young Prince Llyr tha' one. See his mighty armor, He be a shifter! Ooh the Rascal."**

 **I know ..you . . . I walked with you.. Once. . . Upon a Dream…**

 **I know you the Gleam in your eyes.. is soo familiar a Gleam..**

" **Who's that?"**

" **Ah the Lady Branwen, very beautiful she is..she's a Mist Fey and tha's the mighty Oseidon, he's be a Water one, from the great Grey Lands and there's Prince Nuada… Very Powerful and oh look look what luck! There ah be the Mighty Lord Glasgalen! See'z iz ears E gots Wood Elf in him.. they's very lucky! And there …lookit there…lad hurry…There she iz… "**

 _ **Gasp!**_

 _ **He remembers…**_

 _ **He remembers HER.**_

 _ **HER!**_

 _ **Horns that would put any Crown to shame, even his father's.**_

 _ **Eyes like two great stars, skin whiter then cook's flour in the Castle Kitchens, her gown glitters, SHE glitters!**_

 _ **Her lips are redder then the flags of Camelot. Her hair is long and dark like the Night Sky and when she sings….**_

 _ **He imagines his Mother to look like her…**_

 _ **Up till now, She's the most beautiful thing his seven-year old eyes have ever seen.**_

 _ **.**_

 **(She is still beautiful)**

 **?**

 _ **.**_

" _ **Who?" he can barely say the word.**_

" _ **That iz The Queen."**_

" _ **The Queen?"**_

" _ **Ie. Mab y dyn ei bod hi."**_

" _ **Wha?"**_

" _ **Shh. Listen.."**_

 _ **And he did… He listened as They Sang. And he remembered.**_

 _ **The Song..**_

 _ **The Beautiful Song of The Fey.**_

 ***I walked with you… Once upon a Dream. I know you…**

 **That look in your eyes is so familiar a gleam…**

 **Yet I know it's**

 **true. That visions are seldom what they Seem.. But if I know you…I**

 **know what you'll do….You'll love me at once. The way you did once.**

 **Once ..Upon a Dream… la ya.. ah..ah..ah. la.. but if I know you…**

 **I know what you'll do..**

 **You'll love me at once..**

 **The way you did**

 **Once**

 **Upon a Dream.***

 _ **Dancing…and Singing.**_

 _ **First the Lady Fey would start, then much to Arthur's surprise the males would echo them. They twirled and fluttered across a forest pearlescque ballroom floor in the bubble..their grace and beauty otherworldly, and yet ever so real.**_

 _ **Sometimes they changed shape, sometimes they made things appear, one Lady Fey had flowers blossoming right there in her sea foam colored hair, a Male Fey produced a sword that he turned into an array of rubies he bestowed upon a pretty female with fin's for ears.**_

 _ **They laughed. They danced. They played. They teased. They tricked. They Sang.**_

 _ **Such beautiful singing, they waltzed together across stars and golden autumn to spring budded leaves. They sang The Song, they were The Song, Their wings were of every bird, every insect and more little Arthur couldn't even begin to guess…and he watched as even SHE began to Dance her horns like a great Dragons! She spun around the glittering assemblage with the one Baba Yaga called a Wood Elf?**_

 _ **They were so rich and so colorful. They were Life. Joy. Bliss and they were Alive! Bright, illuminating living stars and even though he didn't know the words. Didn't understand them.. he knew…he knew now.**_

 _ **..15 years later…he knew now.**_

 _ **Somewhere, wherever he was..**_

 _ **That.. They were Magic and…**_

 _ **.**_

 _ **It sounded so girly…**_

 _ **.**_

 _ **Nothing else for it.**_

 _ **.**_

 _ **.**_

 _ **They were also.**_

 _ **Love.**_

 _ **Perhaps They were even more then That?**_

 _ **..He doesn't remember…how the Bubble show ended…he doesn't remember how the conversation switched back to Shambles…but he remembers ….the feeling.**_

 _ **That warm right feeling of being connected. To everything around him, like he was suddenly a part of something bigger now…? So much bigger then his father, or Camelot or…or even . . himself?**_

 _ **And that…he had wanted to know…EVERYTHING…**_

 _ **That he had wanted…. Nay Needed….MAGIC, …because…..because?**_

 _ **.**_

 _ **.**_

 _ **.**_

Why?

 _ **.**_

 _ **.**_

 _ **.**_

 _ **.**_

Alone.

What?

I…

I don't feel… alone…

.

Mother.

.

.

Make sense?

.

.

Baba Yiga.

.

I was alone.

She came.

.

.

I.

.

want.

.

 _ **He wanted .. to meet the Queen of The Fey.**_

 _ **He wanted to be her Friend.**_

 _ **So that he wouldn't be alone anymore.**_

 _ **Not ever again.**_

 _ **.**_

 _ **.**_

 _ **And maybe .**_

 _ **So that one day.**_

 _ **Maybe.**_

 _ **Someone could love him too?**_

 _ **Someone would play with him too!**_

 _ **With her he could dance with The Fey too?**_

 _ **He wanted to sing too!**_

 _ **He wanted MAGIC too!**_

 _ **He wanted to be her Best Friend!**_

 _ **Friends with a Fey!**_

 _ **He wanted..to be..**_

 _ **Friends with Magic!**_

…A wish. Just a silly…little wish…One he'd meant with all his tiny childhood heart.…a kind seemingly small little wish…One the Shamble he had absorbed inside him . . heard like a clear resounding church bell..

…a flicker of magic…a spark…and…it echoed the sound…out …into …the world..

….out into time…out into space….…out into dimensions…to come…..…..harkening…back..

.

.

….

.

.

.

What good are wishes anyway?

Apparently according to Mam Baba Yiga quite a lot! When done correctly, but that was the tricky part. They had to be done correctly, try to force a wish too hard and the spell over compensates. Try to do too little and the spell falls utterly flat just like a poorly baked cake in an oven, "Wishez…Bah! Messy messy bizness them! I barely's touch the stuff even on m'good days! Bah! If ya gets one thing off then…KAPLUEH! HOLE HOUSE FALL DOWN and YOUSE WIV IT! _Na. na._ stick to _Shambles_ m'luv ye got a talent fer em I can tells. Also if'n any one claims to grants you za wish. You gives em a hard eye squint! Cause they's tryin to rip you off! Only the _Royal Fey_ can moves _the Stars!_ Don't ferget that!"

"Like the Queen?" asked little Arthur as he tried crafting his second ever _Shamble._

"Ie. Well done! Youza are listenin! Ie. Like the Queen," agreed Mam Baba Yiga as she snagged a ladybug for her current _Shamble_.

"Whose that one for Yiga?" asked Arthur curiously.

"Ah. Ho ho. This one? Iz a fer a Selkie named Murrow. She'z havin a problem wiv a neighboring Kelpie eez's keep eatin her sea ferns and urchin friends..thus she come to me, askin fer a _Shamble_ to h'elps her catch'em in the act," answered Yiga as she carefully threaded a needle through an oyster shell.

"Oh," replied Arthur, the seven year old trying to understand what sea ferns and urchins were amongst the so called, Kelpie? He had spent _**three**_ wonderful exciting days living with Mam Baba Yiga in her little bungalow of a cottage, and each day he learned more and more about magic, the earth, and the way the world of Annwn worked?

He still couldn't believe the Earth was round!?

Just wait until he told smelly old Geoffrey and Gaius that!

Sometimes Yiga was hard to follow. There were so many different types of magical people to remember, and so many different kinds of variations!

There were dryads, nymphs, mermaids, gnomes, bodkins, brownies, naga's and even gargoyles that were made of stone! He decided to just group them all together for now, and like most small boys figured he'd know what they are when he needed too or met them in person. At least Mam Baba Yiga wasn't as boring as his tutors. Really though all the little boy wanted to know about in particular were of course: _The Fey._

 _The Fairies and The Elves._

Ever since Yiga had shown them to him, the little boy hadn't been able to think of anything else, they were just too …exciting… and the more stories she shared like: _Prince Pwyll and his brave descent into the abyss against the Corpse Devourer! And then his mighty battle with Havgan bringer of Fire!_

 **His awe for them grew as did his fierce desire to meet them.**

 **After all, he was Prince Arthur of Camelot!**

 **Who better to meet a young Fey Prince turned King? Then him? A fellow Prince?**

"Mam Baba Yiga what happened after _Prince Pwyll_ beat _Havgan_? Did he slay more munsters?" ask the little boy tossing his makeshift _Shamble_ aside as he picked a small stick and holding it aloft began making sword motions at a displeased rooster.

(For his part Rupert'n the 'Royal Rooster' hadn't grown any fonder of the boy since his arrival. The idiot two legger was stealing his favorite chair! The bloody usurper!)

"Ho. Ho. Hm. Let's me think…I suspect there was a few more adventures but the biggest adventure he had next was ..when he met his Lady Love…"

"Lady Love?"

" _Princess Rhiannon of the Birds,"_ supplied Mam Baba Yiga at the confused boy's expression.

"Rh…Ri..Rhiann ..Rhiannon?" tried Arthur.

"Indeed."

"Birds?"

"Many…" answered Baba Yiga as she spat on her hands before flicking to life some kindle wood, the little boy made a face before asking, "Who is she? What was she like? Was she an adventurer too?"

For a moment Mam Baba Yiga seemed to freeze then like the ice on a fresh morning her body relaxed and she spoke with great clarity her queer accent almost vanishing, " _She was part of us all. Gentle, soft as clouds, and she had a quiet rare wisdom, a balance in all she wove. Some say. Her magic was even greater then Arawn's himself."_

" _Arawn_ …but isn't he like the King. . the. . (what's the word) . .High ..King?"

Mam nodded.

"Wow," said Arthur, "Where is she now?"

" _Long has her Age passed, She travails the Roads of Odd now,_ ah, but tha's for the better, there were _Dark Things_ in the _Time_ of them days and _Eviler Places,"_ replied Yiga a bit sadly.

"She and her _Lord Pwyll_ wiv the other great _Fey of Old_ wove the worlds as they needed too and so we're fairly safe 'ere, until the next great trial… ' _Lady Morrigan her eldest daughter watch over us wiv her.'_ Gone though she be in body, _Rhiannon's Blood_ little prince still lives on and through them _her_ , ah but _Fey never truly die…they's the only true immortals and of Stars. They's live in everything.. even some…in the Trees!'_ Mam Baba Yiga then lowered her head and whispered to the boy.

" _Some even…lives on in humans! They's be boys and girls just like you!"_

"Like Me!?" exclaimed Arthur in shock his mouth falling open.

'CLUCK KOO DOO' put in Rupert'n from his feathery perch.

"I _e. Lad yn union fel chi._ Just like you. Every now and then a witch, druid or a wizard has a Fey fer a relative and don cha ferget that! Cause them of the _First Kind_ get mighty protective and youse being from Camelot aught to know tha. Huh!?" Baba Yiga's eyes suddenly grew wide in realization, "Now I thinks on it? Sum one aught to tell yer _Tad_ about tha. If'n e 'arms, Stars and Grace, forbid a _feyling!_ Ooh! We'z best make more _Shambles…yer gonna need em!_ " instructed the Enchantress as she seemed to foresee the many troubles that would indeed come upon the woe begotten Kingdom of Camelot within the next few years. Her crafting hands moving with renewed determined vigor!

"How many?" asked Arthur as he helped her gather thread from her workroom, and followed the bustling gnome woman around.

"Oh ho ho ho! HUNDREDS!" declared Mam Baba Yiga as she pulled out all the stops. Another two days passed amongst blissful chickens, glorious threads, pretty beetle legs, fun feathery mushroom made beds and oatmeal breakfasts, for the young Prince, when at last the end of the week arrived . .

 _He remembers._

 _The Day._

 _When first he met._

 _Evil._

… _._

"Now fer instance take that one there's.." said Mam Baba Yiga as she pointed one warty clawed finger at a sparkling array of peacock feathers and amber crystals, "Tha' one is used to detect other person's spells whilst see's tha' one wiv the blue jay egg?"

"That one!" said little Arthur delightfully as he pointed enthusiastically, "Oh ho ho ho! Good Eye M'luv! Yes that one is used fer both protection and to help youse find missing things!" instructed the enchantress. Her hair bouncing as the wind blew through the air of the little cottage causing the many _Shambles_ to suddenly _sing_ and chime….very like modern wind chimes millennia later…

 _ **Yet.**_

 _ **He recalls?**_

 _ **That there was an icy edge to the day's wind an untoward chill?**_

 _ **Perhaps, in the corners of his mind, he wonders how things would have been vastly different. Had he noticed the steel cold touch of a cursed breath of icy air?**_

.

.

"What about that one?" pointed the curious child, as there some ways away was a much larger shamble then the rest, it was so large that it actually seemed to be set within the boundary of two oak & maple trees, "It has a really large red stone in the middle and lots of shiny things and spider webbings?" asked Arthur curiously as he stared in awe, wiggling a little on the old woman's knee.

"Ah," said Mam Baba Yiga, the edges of her eyes crinkling in pride and astute calculation as she nodded her head sagely before glancing at some carrots she was plucking from her little makeshift garden, ' _Yes. A mighty magician ye will be! I can see'z it righ there. E's got the touch of Arawn in'em and no doubt Morrigan's guiding eye.'_

"Tha m'luv is a very, very special _Shamble._ See all _Shambles_ of great true Spellcraftare never the same. They's like snowy flakzz each one is unique, original, and different. No two the same. Similar oh yes ho ho, but not the same. That one I made for protection. Very important it is," replied Mam Baba Yiga as she gathered the carrots into a basket.

The little boy looked at the Mighty _Shamble_ , he felt cold, he watched as the strings of it, the beauty of it grew dark and the webbing seemed to bend in the air as if _something were?_

 _Trying to pull it?_

"Mam why's it moving like that? It's shaking all over?" asked little Arthur.

The carrots hit the ground, and everything that had been fluttering and bright stopped, Mam Baba Yiga slowly rose to her full height, and before little Arthur knew it, gone was the kind gentle soul he had been living with, and in her place was a frightening and powerful enchantress.

The entire area became still, silent, as Mam's eyes fixed on the quivering now violently shaking _Shamble._

The red stone in its center suddenly catching on fire, causing Arthur to startle and flinch back…

..cckkkkkc…ckkkk…..

The chickens clucked and clattered before instinct took over and they began flying away with all their might…all save _Rupert'n_. Arthur felt Yiga's hand shaking as she approached the child and held his shoulder.

"It'za can't be…iza…impossible….it just can't...,"whispered Mam in quiet terror, Her hand, on his shoulder quivering from her fear.

"Mam?" questioned little Arthur in worry.

He watched as the woman seemed to stare forever at the burning _Shamble_ , before those glowing eyes fixed upon him, the expression one he would one day later give to many of his knights before they faced death and doom.

"We must run," she whispered, "You must'n cry. You mustn't make any noise. _Old..Old Evil comes_. _Servant of the Dagon! Twisted Fomoiri!_ We must run. You stay wiv me Ar'tur. Stay wiv Yiga. We go now!" she continued to whisper but her words were like the snap of a whip and the bite of bark.

She gathered nothing but a small bag before she grabbed his hand and then they were running, nay they _were fleeing!_ Faster….faster and faster into the _Darkling Woods_. Her warty hand held his in a vice like grip as she sped them across bramble brush and brook never once looking back at where her home was.

Too bad.

In her panic, she hadn't told Arthur not too.

He looked back.

 _ **And he remembers that too.**_

 _ **That Other Side.**_

 _ **He would become vastly more familiar with as his life would go on.**_

 _ **That Dark Magic.**_

 _ **NO.**_

 _ **Not Magic.**_

 _ **NOT MAGIC.**_

 _ **Evil.**_

 _ **True Evil.**_

 _ **Faceless and muddy a black clad figure approached, riding a skeletal worm eaten horse.**_

 _ **Its eyes pale pink, lidless.**_

 _ **It had no mouth?**_

 _ **The rider bore only flesh.**_

 _ **It's ears like an Elf, but jagged, torn.**_

 _ **It's follows them on shadows.**_

 _ **He hears it gasping and clawing.**_

 _ **Yet he thinks, "How? There's no mouth?"**_

 _ **No mouth.**_

 _ **Wheezing for breath it gargles after them and he see's it's ribs bleeding soiled brown through its black clad armor.**_

 _ **Rotting alive..**_

 _ **He see's Mam Baba Yiga's home sucked lifeless as it passes swiftly by it.**_

 _ **The hens that hadn't scattered fast enough…melt.**_

 _ **It wants them.**_

 _ **.**_

 _ **Him and Baba Yiga.**_

 _ **He watches as the very ground under it's steeds foot grows black and decays.**_

 _ **Even the worms struggle to escape.**_

 _ **And he hears IT! In his head, still, muttering intangible things.**_

 _ **It hurts.**_

 _ **The very voice of it scratches!**_

" _ **. Skkkrrrimmmsliiii…slifjlajfPendRagon…"**_

"NAY! NAY CHILD DON'T LOOK AT IT! DON'T LISTEN TO IT! NAY! YOU SHAN'T HAVE'EM! SERVENT OF _**SKRIMSLI**_ _FILTH! BEGONE DAGON SCUM! BEGONE! WRETCHED VILE THING! I FORBID THEE PASSAGE!"_ and like with the wolf Mam Baba Yiga suddenly flings herself between Arthur and the harrowing hollow rider.

" _RUN! RUN TO THE RIVER CHILD! RUN ARTHUR! DON'T LOOK BACK! WHATEVER HAPPENS KEEP RUNNING!"_ screamed Mam Baba Yiga as she conjured daggers out of roots and flung them against the being that suddenly despite no mouth let out a terrifying sound!

Inhuman and horrible it raised its arm and it's hand became a white bone metallic like scythe! It cut down the roots with barely a scratch. The hoofs of its mount tore through the Earth like a mad titan of old. Enraged!

Yet the brave Enchantress stood tall as she brought forth bolts of flash fire and wove a shield of gold in the air! Blocking there would be assailant's assault! She twirled and the ground around her lit up like an unholy purple firestorm!

Still the lidless rider would not be stopped! It's lidless pink eyes expanded and like some sort of cockroach an antennae grew out of it's worm eaten skull, it moved like a tentacle of the ancient creatures of nightmare…

 _ **That only the denizens of the Mountains of Madness would ever dare claim kin.**_

It sucked up Baba's Firestorm with gusto and began retching black acidic muck like waves back at her. Yiga spun and her movements grew more animalistic with the savagery of attacks. Gone fully was the kind homely woman who had saved little Arthur.

 _Who stood frozen in fear!_

Terrified, behind Yiga's impenetrable golden shield of light little Arthur couldn't move! He couldn't get his little legs to run, no matter how his mind screamed at him too! His heart thundered in his chest as he watched Yiga's back arch and her hands became long white claws and then…

 _ **WHAM! CLANG! SSSSCREECH!**_

 _ **They struck!**_

 _ **Scythe and Claw**_

 _ **Good and Evil**_

 _ **Baba Yiga flew off the ground, and she became like an impossible mist!**_

 _ **The rider dismounted, it's one arm a sea of snakelike protrusions! They aimed for her jugular, her eyes, any opening to rend apart an extremity, but the more the pale daemon tried to hurt the mist! The more its targets moved!**_

 _ **It HOWLED! VIOLENT RAGE!**_

 _ **BABA HOWLED HER OWN WAR CRY RIGHT BACK!**_

The seven-year old child watched, transfixed, and horrified, as trees were torn down, mud flied through the air and the wind became a torrent of cuts!

 **It was his first time on a battlefield and he would never forget.**

 **Never. No matter how hard he tried.**

 **Or his father.**

The child watched as the ground burned and bubbled and he wept when he heard Yiga's cries of pain as those pale scythe like snakes for hands tore into her flesh without any mercy!

"…ah …ah…ah," he couldn't speak! The child stood traumatized.

What could he do? What could he do? He couldn't do ANYTHING!

Yiga's blood fell and became the mist and suddenly her blood was everywhere scattering like the spray of sea foam! However, it wasn't enough that the Monster had sliced Yiga like a piece of toast oh no.

There was a greater terror….the snakelike tentacle protruding from it's skull, latched onto a cut in Yiga's skin and then…it ..?

 _The little boy didn't know…_

 _He didn't know…_

 _All he knew….was that Mam Baba Yiga….was screaming. …screaming…..SCREAMING_ _ **…SCREAMING!**_

 _No wonder he could never stomach torture._

 **He remembers, images of the days they had spent together.**

 **He remembers how she saved him from the wolv.**

 **The kindness of her.**

 **The warmth of her.**

 **Her home.**

 **Her delightful Shambles.**

 **Her stories of the Fey.**

 **And all the little moments, sitting on mushrooms with her eating her food, helping her garden, chatting, singing, even her blasted rooster! Her hugs..her and**

 _ **SHE'S SCREAMING.**_

 _ **SCREAMING!**_

 _ **IT'S EATING HER ALIVE!**_

 _ **BURNING HER!**_

 **Torture**

 **It had been torturing her.**

 _ **HER SKIN BUBBLES BLACK AND RED and BURSTS UNDER PRESSURE!**_

" _ **AAAAAHAAH!"**_

 _ **IT'S KILLING HER!**_

 _ **MAM!**_

 _ **No.**_

"No"

…..

It's so small, but it's not the voice of a Knight, nor the voice of some mighty Gnome King. It lacks the succulent tides of a Selkie Queen. It falls short of the voice of a Unicorn, if anything it is subpar in comparison to such. There is nothing in tone about this tiny noise that matches any beast of the earth, such as lion or chimera. In truth no animal it knows, save one, can make such a distinct reviled sound. Yet it's not the voice of a Dragon? Nor a Witch? It is by far no Chrestomanci. Its not even a simple street enchanter...not yet anyways. …

Though it could be…

Indeed no. It is something else this impudent thing?

It's not the voice of a giant or an immortal colossus. Nay. The small cry comes from no Great Vampire. Nor any ancient entity of power from the time's of Celestial Emissary's. It comes not from Angels nor does the voice come from the Devils or even the great Giver of the Sea of Time or from the Lands Beyond the Stars, none visible to mortal Naked Eye.

This fact does not comfort.

This only makes it more terrifying.

It knows.

It knows what this small creature is!

Oh yes!

The _Dagon Daemon of Old knows!_

 _It KNOWS!_

Neither great, horrible, but beautiful _Chthullu Master of Ebrietas_ nor the _Forgotten One,_ nor even the _Founder of Deep Magic_ speaks or has spoken…

 _The Vileblood Daemon_ cannot feel, but it knows!

IT KNOWS!

THE SMALL CREATURE! IT KNOWS!

What was it like? To hear it?

The call of Doom?

An objection from one of _Death's Fated_!?

To hear directed at it the one thing that Gods, All Gods, even perhaps our God?

In their private hearts fear most?

Directed at it.

"NO."

Ordered a boy.

A small little boy.

A child of Man.

A _Death Fated._

Man.

MAN

King of Beasts.

King of Tools.

Creator of Machine.

Storyteller

Slayer

Protector

Guardian

and

in the End when necessary,

when vital,

The Great Destroyer.

!

!

" **s** _ **DYNE …WBl..ood...AAAsskkkkS! (CLICK) (SCREECH!"! It wails!**_

"NOOO!" the child screams at it!

Defiance.

Challenge!

Death.

It does not feel. It does not live, eat nor drink. Not in the sense humans know. Ah but it knows! It knows. Yes. It turns its pale head it looks at the little creature, so weak that dares to, dares! To order it!? To interrupt it's hunt! It will devour and slurp the flesh of the little pest next. Wait? Yet though it does not feel, it lives. It lives in a sense. Not in living sense but in dream sense and it smells….Death. Powerful death? Terror. Fear. Perplexity? It's death.

Yes. It knows. It knows.

This one child, this child of _fated flesh_ , _perishable blood_ , will lead and with all it detestable kind in pursuit, follow. It will destroy it!? It knows. It see's it now! A threat! A very real threat! The Great Threat!

For it remembers: Man is the Great Hunter. Man is the God Killer and Man is the King of Beasts, Man is Death's Working Hands, and Man loves the FEY.

Has Always Lain with the TUATHA THILTH!

Bedded them.

Of them!

Flesh and blood of THEM!

Disgusting Ugly THING!

UGLY. HATE! HATE! It growls in pain! It envy's such destructive talent and…it HATES. It hates MAN. For the child will be a man. It knows. It knows.

Threat. Man must die.

Man-Child must die. For the child is threatening it.

It looks straight into the child's eyes.

And It decides.

It will see it.

It will see, the threat, it came to Snatch and Kill.

Let it see this would be obstacle!

Let it see this …..child…

 _ **Pulsating pink lidless pupiless eyes open in on themselves like..**_

 _ **Like slime over an insect eye or flower petals? They peel back, stringy red wiggling worms twist out from under the pulled back pink iris nay the red wiggling worms are the iris!?**_

 _ **They flow together, in and out, garnet wiggling searing red worms!**_

 _ **And at last like a beak in a giant squid's maw**_

 _ **A cross between fish and toad like black pitch pupils appear.**_

 _ **Oozing and pulsing like bulging blue sacks of a heart chamber.**_

 _ **It's eyes now fully open.**_

 **Young Arthur is grossed out and disgusted, yet can't look away! The child watches the ugly being morbidly entranced. Unable to fully comprehend what he is seeing? For Man has always been curious, children especially, even when faced with something obscene, especially when a child has never heard nor seen such a thing. Curiosity, man's great strength and great flaw, works against the young boy.**

 **Arthur concludes it's disgusting! Whatever it is?! This thing is the most disgusting thing he has and ever will see! Extremely so but it gets worse!**

 **The thing forgets Mam Baba Yiga.**

 **Drops her like a limp ragdoll.**

 **She hits the ground hard.**

 **THUD.**

 **Her body black and blue like a plague victim and in truth perhaps she is?**

" **Nay….n.. ..Run…run…"she whimpers at him weakly, desperate.**

… **..**

 _ **Later, much later, Arthur will realize how much she must have grown to love him, to suffer so for him….to….**_

 _ **But by then… he couldn't of run.**_

 _ **He couldn't even look away, he was but a frightened babe, when the pale rider's face twisted and it's jaw elongated only to split with a gruesome bone sickening crack, before it spoke at him.**_

 _ **What it said, he does not know.**_

 _ **He does not care too.**_

 _ **And he could not possibly repeat.**_

 _ **It was…. inhuman.**_

 _ **All he retains is that for one moment he felt nothing but agony!**_

 **Agony and Pain.**

 _ **That as his mind suffered painful seizures, that their eyes locked together, his and the daemons, in a stare down.**_

 _ **That he was welcomed into it?**_

 _ **Allowed into its scarred churning alien head..**_

 _ **To see a fraction of it's world.**_

 **A world of dark taint, of blood scattered cobblestones, of mutilations, abominations, of endless burning funeral pyres and of an eerie field of white flowers where a blond ghost white female creature sings. Garbed in red with eyes just as ruby bright to match, she sits untouched eating from man-sized sacks of meat. She sits on a raised dais, womb bulging and bulging as she consumes other worlds to birth the twisted one she wishes for.**

 **She sings a dark haunting irregular melody of smooth seduction. Of madness. Of plague and blight. A Vile Queen, but seemingly powerless then she makes a guttural shriek.**

 _ **A cauldron is brought forth.**_

 _Pair Dadeni_

 _ **A cauldron of terrible tragedy and power.**_

 _ **Where once an evil twin threw himself in to boil and burn. Out of an odd act of compassion for the other half of his soul that had been lost.**_

 _ **The Vile Queen pours water into.**_

 _ **She then submerges herself.**_

Wrong. Terrible.

Damned

Damned

 _ **Arthur screams his little skull is buring! He tries desperately to look away! He doesn't want this! Doesn't! Can't! Understand!**_

 _ **He pulls, but the daemon holds him in its stare. Forces him to see.**_

" _ **YES SEE! BEHOLD AND BLEED!"**_

 _ **The Queen has a child in the forsaken cauldron!**_

A boy.

Not like Arthur.

No.

Not a boy.

Her baby eats her!

It stands. It's tall. It's dark. It's wrong! It's bad!

Bad. Bad!

WRONG.

It scares him shitless!

He wets himself in terror.

It turns.

Fully grown, ancient, old, powerful, evil.

EVIL!

White tentacles for hair, ruby carnal bleeding, human but not human eyes, it gazes at him through its servants' wiggling ones, and it knows.

 _ **See's HIM!**_

 _ **ARTHUR SCREAMS BUT HIS MOUTH WON'T OPEN!**_

 _ **HE'S PARALYZED!**_

 _ **.**_

 _ **.**_

 _ **.**_

 _ **The Vile King Approaches.**_

 _ **.**_

 _ **.**_

 _ **Born of Pair Dadeni.**_

 _ **Child of Dagon.**_

 **Unholy Sin.**

 _ **The Monster sees him and laughs.**_

 _ **Voice smooth as poisoned barbs and soft like a serpents hiss, but guttural and deep like a rumbling choir, its voice scratches and its every word hurts like nails on a chalkboard!**_

"Oh?" Evil speaks.

"What have we found?….A little Prince? Does the child want to play? Play with _**Skrimslee?**_ Yes. Play. Play then I eat you. Princes' nay…Kings should play together? Should they not? Tell me…Pendragon…what color does man bleed? Heheehe heehahehaaa..Come ..Come _Komdu í sundur_ _!"_

 _ **MONSTER!**_

"Chwarae gyda mi Arthur, dawnsio a rhoi fy nifrod i mi ar y diwedd! Hir ydw i wedi aros amdanat ti, fy nghalon werthfawr. Rhai cymhelliant sydd ei angen arnoch chi? Y gwaed cyntaf yna bydd **MINE**!" Evil rallies.

 ***Play with me Arthur, dance and give me my destruction at last! Long have I waited for thee, my precious doom. Some incentive you need yes? First blood then will be MINE!"**

" **NAY!"**

" **NAY!"**

" **NAY! ARTHUR! NAY!"**

" **LOOK AT ME!"**

 **LOOK AT ME ARTHUR!"**

 **MAM BABA YIGA'S FACE APPEARS FILLING ALL HIS VISION. HER HANDS HOLDING HIS HEAD AS SHE FORCES HIM TO LOOK ONLY AT HER! SHE SAYS SOMETHING IN HER NATIVE TONGUE? ARTHUR DOESN'T UNDERSTAND!?**

 **The** _ **daemon**_ **servant is PUSHED OFF THE CHILD, brutally fatally wounded by Yiga in it's distraction, it howls it's rage at Yiga's interruption, as does it's blighted Master in it's head.**

 **For another word and the child's mortal mind would have been sundered.**

 **Permanently perished. It's hungry King nourished.**

 **/**

" **So close…so close" hisses the insidious King, licking his skull white lips, starving.**

 **His many tongues slurp.**

 **His tentacled skull tilts, a fog descends, he laughs and hisses, "All the better….** _ **skkksssssiahss**_ **"**

 **/**

 _ **MIRACULOUSELY YIGA BREAKS THE TRANCE ON THE CHILD, LIFTS THE SLIGHTLY CATATONIC LITTLE BOY IN HER BLOODY WOUNDED ARMS AND RUNS! THE RIVER. SHE THINKS! HER SOUL TERRIFIED!**_

 _ **MERCIFUL STARS! THE ABOMINATION!**_

 _ **THE MONSTER IS HERE!**_

 _ **BREAKING THROUGH THE DIMENSIONAL VEILS!**_

 _ **THE UNHOLY!**_

 _ **THE UNCLEAN NIGHTMARE!**_

 _ **TOO CLOSE! HE'S FAR FAR TOO CLOSE!**_

 _ **HE WANTS THE CHILD!**_

 _ **HEAVENS SAVE THEM!**_

 _ **..POWERS OF LIFE SAVE THEM!**_

 _ **IT CAN'T CROSS-MOVING WATER! SHE THINKS DESPERATELY! HE HAS NO POWER WITH MOVING WATER! HE CANNOT TOUCH THAT PLANE! MORRIGAN'S SACRIFICE STILL STANDS! HE HAS NO POWER! NOT EVEN THROUGH HIS SERVANT!**_

 _ **NOT YET! NOT YET!**_

 _ **THE RIVER!**_

 _ **IT'S THEIR ONLY CHANCE. THE CHILD'S ONLY CHANCE!**_

 _ **SHE RUNS AND WITH THE LAST OF HER MAGIC, EVEN HER LIFE ESSENCE MAGIC SHE DOES THREE THINGS…**_

 _ **SHE BLOCKS THE CHILD'S MEMORY OF THE DAMNED MAD FORMORIAN KING…**_

… _ **SHE SENDS OUT A SUMMONING CALL TO KING UTHER AND THE KNIGHTS OF CAMELOT…**_

… _ **AND SHE CASTS AS MUCH HEALING AND PROTECTIVE MAGIC AS SHE CAN ON …THE LITTLE BOY….**_

'Her little boy' cries her heart… she clutches him to her body …though the time had been brief some deep part of her had adopted him as her own…. And she would have enjoyed and loved being a mother to him in the absence of the one he had lost… for he was a wonderful boy…a good son…a sweet good tender little boy!

"Lady Morrigan, Lady Rhiannon, Lord Pwyll, Lord Pryderi, Lord Almighty Arawn please. . Oh STARS ABOVE.. MIGHTY EARTH . . SACRED ALL MAGIC! PLEASE! Please. All powers that be! Please, please protect this little boy! I beg ye..please keep him safe! Please! PLEASE!" Mam Baba Yiga prays and chants aloud over and over as she runs.

 _ **SHE RUNS…**_

 _ **SHE RUNS…**_

 _ **THOUGH FATALLY INJURED IT CHASES THEM DOWN!**_

 _ **STILL MAM BABA YIGA RUNS ON.**_

 _ **SHE MUST!**_

 _ **.**_

.

.

…. ….**************************….

…..

…

Arthur doesn't remember, how they reached the river. He can only recall how tight Yiga held him in her bleeding arms, as she ran towards it, panting heavily in exhausted desperation! Her breathing hard, her voice weeping and gasping aloud as she chanted something over and over in her native tongue. He remembers how she twisted and turned along the path, shielding him with her own sweat blood covered flesh as black headed poisonous barbed arrows whistled by them! One nicks her arm near his head! The droplets of red stay in his memory as does her yelp of pain! The creature pursuing them howls in ecstatic delight, the sound like a hags chortle! Arthur doesn't cry, not this time, instead he only holds Yiga tighter with instinctual child need.

Then there is the sound of splashing water! Yiga doesn't stop at the rivers edge but plows into it full force! She runs, partly wades her way across the river uncaring of the deepness of it or the moving current or the chance she could lose her footing!

All that matters is that the child reaches the other side.

A terrible enraged shriek is heard, the sound of whooshing air and then…

Yiga makes a choice. She throws little Arthur to the other side of the bank.

The seven year old child lands hard on his arm, spraining it, limbs all akimbo, but he manages to look up, back towards Yiga and…

A lance like, black barbed spear protrudes from her left shoulder. Blood falls out of her mouth and mixes with the water below. So much red. He's never seen such red. She falls and stumbles in the water. Still trying to reach him.

Trying to protect him.

From _The Monster!_

He sees the other end of the lance sticking out of her back…

The sight of her state, somehow miraculously breaks the child's incoherence!

"YIGA!" Arthur wails, "NOOO! STOP! NO! YIGGAA!"

In the distance he hears the horns of Camelot, the thundering of horses. He hears the cries of Sir Gadwhen, Sir Jerome, Sir Christopher, Sir Eliot, Sir Oscar and finally his father, "ARTHUR! ARTHUR! PRINCE!"

He doesn't even glance at them or in their direction. All he can see is the evil wretched thing running into the river behind Yiga. He watches her bleeding and stumbling. Her arms bravely, protectively, out stretched to him. The Monster holds another spear, it's rotting body bubbling and melting as it touches the water! It screeches in pain as it starts to succumb to death.

Mam Baba Yiga reaches the bank where Arthur lies on the ground.

The Monster launches the spear before it fully disintegrates and melts into the river.

The Spear aimed at him flies….

"ARTHUUUURRR!" his father screams with the knights in terrified witness.

THUNK.

Prince Arthur at the age of seven looks up.

Right into the gentle face of Mam Baba Yiga.

A woman of Magic.

Who acted as a living shield and took two spears for him.

She collapses next to his little body.

"There, There luv.." she whispers. . her lips caked with blood, "don't…cry."

"Z.a'right. . ye…safe…..now…" her blood trickles to the ground.

".m…m'shamble" she barely whispers, her eyes glittering wet and drifting.

They focus on him.

".…w'ont….let… **Him** …ave…you…never…by **Ma**.. **gic**.… **never**.."

There is a tiny spark of gold.

Then the glint in her eyes fades.

"Yiga?"

"Yiga!"

"YIGA!"

…..*******..….^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^*************************************…****************************** …..

… _ **16 years later in Camelot…..**_

 _ **..Present Day..**_

 _ **.**_

 _ **.**_

"Yiga..?" Prince Arthur mumbles the name on his tongue. He lets out a slight hiss as morning light rains down softly upon him through the red curtains of his father's chambers. He lifts one hand to block the gentle rays. His sky blue eyes filled with tears, but whether from the dream of recovered memory or from the sting of the sun he cannot say.

Outlined by the sunlight he stares for a moment at his twenty-second year old hand. Warm, alive, it is a man's hand, no longer a little child's, he notes. 'It looks like such a good strong hand doesn't it?' he thinks. There are calluses on the fingertips from his time training and leading knights, a small tiny mark on his thumb, from the slip of a sword once. The lifelines, a fortuneteller would have read, stretch across his palm, smoothly, the naturally knitted flesh, pale but sun kissed, making it tan. His nails are clean albeit a bit chewed, from a worry habit that he has to fight himself on…he always, especially when alone, secretly bite's his thumbnail in worry. He'd been doing so last night…..

'Last night,' suddenly in a flash Arthur recalls, his birthday, the circus bastard!

"Father" he whispers, afraid. He realizes that he's been lying on the dusty floor of his father's bedchamber, he registers that there is a scattering of twigs all across the floor along side him, which means . . .?

'The old man, the sorcerer…did..?' Arthur gulps. He needs to get off the floor, needs to know if he hadn't hallucinated the entire thing?

In his mind eye he see's, feels and hears it all again: the _strange horned female entity_ , the old sorcerer casting his spells? The spell going wrong, the room spinning, objects morphing, singing, such _beautiful singing.._

The singing?

He _knew that singing?_ He recognized it? Why? He had heard it before?

It was like?

 _Like?_

Long ago…

 _Once…_

 _Upon.. a dream..?!_

Arthur's eyes widen. He feels like a blindfold has just been ripped from his eyes! He sharply inhales. On a stand near the window of his father's chamber lies a glass vase, the sunlight glitters against it, catching his eye. "Once upon a dream _,"_ he whispers, the glass sparkles like an enchanted bubble, "Once upon a dream," he repeats, "Once upon a dream!"

 _Memory flashes! Mam Baba Yiga blowing her bubble pipe! The Rooster! Yiga's teachings! The Crystal Ball! The Queen! The sound of their laughter. The beauty of their dancing, Their joy when they played. Their gentle teasing. Their silly tricks as They Sang. Fairies!_

 _Such beautiful songs, he recalls, as they waltzed together across stars and golden autumn to spring budded leaves. Never ending in their singing for their singing as Mam had taught him makes the World._

 _They breathe The World with every breath and note…They are the World and They sing The Song, they were The Song….Magic, Life .. Love…_

 _He remembers!_

 _He remembers! ALL OF IT!_

Arthur stares down at the palm of his hands. His eyes in disbelief and shock, because he hasn't felt this certain about something _magical_ since the time _Nimueh_ left him for dead in that cave of spiders where he followed that…that glowing…

He sucks in another breathe! His mind just might explode from the realization because it was a glowing _bubble crystal_ wasn't it!?

WASN'T IT!?

A bubble crystal!

That guided him to safety!

 _She'd_ made them with her pipe!

'Bubble Crystals!...BUBBLE CRYSTALS!…YIGA! YIGA!' she had dazzled him for days with hundreds of soapy bubble crystals! And who else with magic but her would rescue him?!

"Yiga," whispers Arthur his heart breaking for it had to have been a spell of hers somehow? What other magical person would watch over him so? Cared for him so? It seemed that even from the grave she still protected him, brave, brave, Yiga.

Somehow he must find a way to honor her? To pay her proper homage. Thrice had she saved him, but how do _magic folk_ like to be honored?

Better question: HOW COULD HE HAVE FORGOTTEN HER!

Nay, suppressed, so much!

'No wonder my father, had to overload me with so many duties, tutors, and lessons,' he thought grimly, a bitter ugly sour feeling growing in his stomach, 'the busier I was, the less time I had to think…or argue…or object..or question what he proclaimed!'

Which he had, hadn't he?

Yes.

Every single time he had asked or tried to argue with his father on the 'taboo' subject, he'd been punished hadn't he. Mention magic once, a slap on the hand. Mention magic twice, and his father made him muck out the stables alone at nine. Mention it thrice and he was to receive no supper, and he was kept locked in his chambers….like a prisoner….all to stop him from thinking.

To stop him from remembering!

Well he was certainly thinking now! Damnit!

Like an open floodgate, it all rushed back! Yiga! Shambles! Her lessons on gargoyles! How useful some of this knowledge could have been! Damnit! How could he have forgotten!

DAMNATION! He was more angry with himself for forgetting such details, for letting himself forget, then anything else. Father's actions or not! HE SHOULDN'T HAVE FORGOTTEN!

.

.

How!? The question burned.

 _Plus above all how could he have forgotten: THEM!_

 _The Fey!_

 _Those pure beautiful ethereal star-like beings, she had shown him, forever singing with joy, life ….!_

 _Singing….the answer to that never-ending question in the back of his skull…_

 _Stars….the origin of that little voice of denial and objection to his father's doctrine…_

 _._

 _._

 _._

 _So many constellations of harmonic voices…._

The Stars had sung… _last night…_

… _Last night..?_

 _._

 _._

 _._

A bird, a sparrow or a robin perhaps twitters a little near the open window, and he spots a mouse scurrying against the far wall of his father's bedroom…that's right? He's in his father's bedroom, he's still sitting on the floor too. Because last night… last night?

"She was here," whispers Arthur entranced as his mind picks and matches the details of what was once locked away from him.

"The _singing? That particular song!"_ His previous line of inquiry runs rampant, as he recalls how the room spun, the walls changing into that _amazing Other transcendent nebula filled, MOVING Place?_

 _Yiga's_ stories erupting in his brain like Pompeii!

The certainty of the _Magical Event_ oflast night burnishes in his brain like metal in a forge! As he recalls, not only his dream, his memory, or the little events of last night like giving that old man a piggy back ride, but also and most importantly his impression of **HER**!

 **HE'D RECOGNIZED HER!**

"That was their singing! _The Fey! The Fey singing! No_ _ **HER**_ _Singing!_ That's what they do! Mam told me! I remember! _I REMEMBER!"_ he gasps as he mumbled over the words, clutching his hands, his eyes trailing around the room for any lingering sign of HER presence!

' _ **The Queen!**_ _**The Queen of the Fey! The QUEEN!**_ She had come! She had come to _help him!_ In his time of need, the _**Queen of Magic itself**_ had come!' he thought clutching his trembling hands in awe and wonder. The part of him still left over from the recollection of his childhood memory whooped with near fanatic joy and he felt like crying? Another part of him was honestly, mortally, terrified by the display of such power! Right in the heart of the Castle!

Completely invisible, with everyone at her mercy and yet… and yet?

 _It had been…_ _ **HER.**_

The one magical being he had so greatly and so desperately wanted as a child, _wished_ to meet, had come! Had come for him! To help him! The son of a man who hated her kind! Executed anyone like her on the spot….still she had come..?!

He could still feel her calming strong clawed feminine hand on his shoulder. He still heard the ripples of her oceanic voice, felt her austere natural air, her nobility, her immortal gentility and grace and he realized that he had put his trust instinctually in her last night? His body and the deepest parts of his subconscious somehow had instinctually known, had felt safe, been ready…to trust?

God above he could still say that…that…

 _Her great horns still put any Crown to shame, most definitely including his father's. Her eyes still like two endless cosmic stars glittered ever beautiful. Her skin though it had been hidden by shadow was still whiter then cook's flour in the Castle Kitchens, her sparkling effervescent gown had been replaced, with a probably for the occasion but none the less, radiant, midnight black feathered robe of shadow, yet how she had shined!_

" _ **Who?"**_ he hears the ghost of his younger self, ask like a humongous echo in his head.

" _ **That iz The Queen**_ ,"replies the now free memory of _Mam Baba Yiga_.

"The Queen?"

" _Ie_ _ **. Mab**_ _y dyn ei bod hi,"_ voices the magic woman from his youth in a language he doesn't know, but still conveys the tone of confirmation.

 _ **The Queen…of Magic…Her grace….Queen Mab?**_

… _ **.Had been in Camelot…right next to him…**_

 _ **.**_

 _ **Comforted him. Held him together just when it seemed his world was going to once more fall apart…?**_

 _ **.**_

 _ **.**_

 _ **.**_

 _ **Mab…..**_

 _ **.**_

 _ **.**_

 _ **.**_

 _ **.**_

 _ **Queen Mab… a strong name… …it certainly sounded regal….didn't it?**_

 _ **.**_

 _ **.**_

 _ **Emerald Ocean eyes flashed in his head…**_

' _ **Mab'**_

 _ **.**_

 _ **.**_

 _ **.**_

"She even knew my name," mutters Arthur dumbfounded.

His wish!

He'd wished to meet her hadn't he?!

Over ten blasted years later but the damn _Wish Shamble_ finally worked!?

"Oh…oh.." Arthur stuttered he didn't know what to make of all this! He really didn't! He was curled up on the floor in practically a ball but who could blame him! Here he was the damn accursed Prince of Camelot where Magic was all but a sin to act on and what does he do! He goes and breaks the law! Not only does he invite a sorcerer and extremely powerful moody old sorcerer into Camelot by smuggling him in, but …somehow he drew the attention and or brought or got the aide of the _**QUEEN OF THE FEY**_ _!_

 _ **Magical Royalty HERSELF!**_

 _If he was remembering what Yiga taught him correctly?_

Arthur felt like he was about to start hyperventilating…

Sweet saints above or any power listening if his father was in fact alive and on that bed, and got a hint of ANY of this. Then maybe he aught to just get up off this floor go down to the main square and start building his own pyre?

At least it would be a productive and rather normal way to spend an afternoon in Camelot wouldn't it? Maybe he could even enlist the Knights to help him, they'd make it a nice big bonfire heap size pile of wood. He asked Gwaine to get some pigs and roast them along with him. Might as well cook some meat and have some kind of farewell banquet as they send him on his merry way… 'Lord I feel sick,' he thinks as he morbidly imagines himself burning down to his bone.

His flesh tearing away with the fire like…like the skin of that poor old sorcerer?

'Wait..that's right? The sorceror?' Arthur sits up and remembers after the room, the Queen, the singing, the spell failing…then the old sorceror, wailing, no screaming his very bones breaking. . that strange _amazing_ other place? So _many stars spinning and spinning_ until . . finally . . that that _bloody…but golden_ _beautiful winged creature…._

 _That….._

 _That was a Fey…wasn't it?!_

 _The_ _ **sorceror**_ _had turned into a_ _ **Fey**_ _!_

 _That was a Fey!_

 _A High Fairy!_

 _I'm sure!_

 _But….._

" _ **Arthur?"**_ _it had spoken with a voice too beautiful and_ _ **too**_ _ **familiar**_ _..._

His thoughts freeze.

Blue eyes look up to where the old man should have been in the room.

Either standing or on the floor… splayed out like himself..

" _ **Arthur?"**_ **says that otherworldly voice again all too familiar…**

Arthur shakes his head.

"No," he whispers so quietly…

" _Arthur…Arthur….Arthur.." says the Fey…the Fairy…the voice ringing and chiming in his head over and over…sweetly soft, like a gentle wind brushing his hair…like a trusted friends shoulder pat….the vision of the winged golden horned ambiguously beautiful but very male being appears in his minds eye, speaking his name…all with eyes he knows…yet doesn't.._

 _Those concerned_ _ **familiar**_ __ _sapphire shaded blue eyes,_ _with golden light. .dancing in them. . ._

" _Arthur?" the being said with…_.

.

.

'Is it true?' Arthur thinks. 'Was …Did that happen?' Arthur asks the air aloud.

He'd passed out right after. . he couldn't be sure?

"Yiga," Arthur says like a small prayer, "Fey" he whispers… still marveled, time freezes, as his brain begins to connect some seemingly random dots.

The sound of a bird greeting the dawn touches his ears, no doubt the Robin from before? Slowly the crown prince gazes around the room, his mind growing more and more clear. He wonders momentarily how he can confirm? He wants to be certain? Has to be, this was no time to jump to conclusions! He looks around when he notices, there!

Right there!

On the ledge of his father's window, beyond the sparkling glass vase, is a rose.

One perfect cream colored rose!

No rose bush exists under his father's windows, more importantly it's on the inside? Why, it looks like it's growing right out of the wooden frame of the window! Eggshell blue eyes absorb the sight of it! Across the floor, upon the furniture, under the obvious twigs…those same bright slightly bewildered eyes notice that the dust of the floor…is shimmering, shining in the sunlight?

He looks closer and…it glitters like tiny diamonds?!

His heart pounds within his chest!

It is a queer silvery, prismatic substance finer then sand that covers the room!

He shuffles across the floor over to it!

His hand reaches out for the substance, brushing over the surface…

" _Arthur?" says that otherworldly voice again all too familiar…_

A gasp fills the air.

"This is…?" he whispers... _'Stardust_ ,' supplies a part of his brain.

 _Pure…Stardust!_

"Real," he whispers awed, the space for doubt growing dimmer and dimmer.

He stares at his hands, feeling the fine soft unusual texture of the stardust upon them! Arthur rapidly blinks! Sunlight causes the dust to shimmer, and a myriad of small prisms burst all around him!

A small sound escapes him.

He leans back on his rump, his back hits the wooden dresser behind him gently, and he notices that there is a scent in the air? Soft, fragrant, of a kind of peppermint, a sort of floral mix, perhaps lilac or lavender with something of the woods, something spicy almost like a queer cinnamon?

Something…of berries, so very auspicious, so very familiar…he sucks in another breathe! Then in the silence of the room….he hears a noise, like the echo of a ghost, it is so very, very faint? The prisms dance around the room, with the day's dawn. It's hard to hear! He holds his breathe, and stretches his ears! Focusing! Focus!

.

.

.

" _Upon..a..dream…That…look…what..they…seem…...la ..ahh….if I know.. ..the way you did once …"_

 _'_ _Once upon a dream! MY GOD!'  
_

"The Fey! SHE WAS REAL! THEY WERE REALLY HERE!" he declares aloud in stunned wonder! On instinct he laughs in stupefied shock, "Fairies! Fairy! Magic! Like Yiga showed me! I remember! They were here! REAL! Truly here and I knew… I know it! I?" He stops. His mind vividly recalling everything he can from last night's interactions and desperately cross-comparing it to those vague brief childhood ones!

He see's them again at last in his mind in all their pristine finery! Clear as day! As if he were right there back in Yiga's chicken filled garden! He see's them in their court of nature and splendor, singing as the world had sung last night! He just can't get over the recovered memory! He keeps seeing them dancing as the stars had danced, their bodies easily ever shifting as the bones of the sorcerer had shifted…

.

 _The old sorcerer, wailing, no screaming his very bones breaking_. ?

So _many stars spinning and spinning_ . … _flesh…morphing…blood…space.._

 _That_ _bloody…but golden,_ _beautiful winged creature…being born….?_

" _ **Arthur?"**_ _says that otherworldly voice again oh so painfully familiar…_

 _With the face of…_

 _._

 _._

.

.

Stop.

Hold on.

One moment.

Arthur frankly looks at the empty spot across the room. His awe and delight fading into frightened …confusion…no…worse…..a looming understanding!

He feels like his mind just opened another door….except this one was locked.

For darn good reason.

.

.

'Alright,' he thinks, 'The sorcerer?What exactly had happened to the sorcerer…?'

.

.

'He was standing there….?'

.

.

'I was over here a bit….?'

.

.

Wait a tick.

Hang on!

One minute!

There had been something else, hadn't there?

Something else he had seen, last night, or remembered?

Something important?

Something that up till this mornings dream, memory, recollection, whatever, had topped every other crazy magic-related experience he'd had thus far…?

The sorcerer…it had to do…with him?

 _His face…._

It had unsettled him?

Deeply disturbed him?

Why?

What had it been?

It had made him faint in shock?

What could?

.

.

" _Arthur" says the Fey…the Fairy…the voice ringing…_

What was it?

Oh come now Arthur!

It was just last night!

He'd seen?

What exactly had he seen?

Okay. Step One. There was enchanted singing, his father's chair had sported wings? Grown fur? Alright. Second step. The walls had flowers and trees sprouting from them? Yes? Maybe?

Hmmm

Okay. Moving onwards. Next moment? He could have sworn everything including himself had been floating…then there was that horned…HER! The Queen! Right!

RIGHT! Absolutely fairy!

Okay check off magical creature involvement, and …and…the sorcerers bones had been breaking. . they had gone or been transported to that strange _amazing_ other place?

With comets and…and… the sorcerers flesh had ripped open…turned into a bloody mess quite literally, and then….and then…..

.

.

?

.

.

!

.

.

 _Golden scales…large black golden-flecked feathery scaly wings_

… _golden horns.._

 _._

 _silky back hair…._

 _Pointy ears…_

"Funny ears", he mumbles, numb. Sunlight glitters across a star dusted room…

.

.

.

.

"No," he whispers so quietly, but it's too late…

.

.

.

" _Arthur?" the Fey had said with…with…_

 _._

 _._

 _._

 _Merlin's_ face.

.

.

.

.

.

.

'No. No. No I must be mistaken, hallucinated it… my mind is just confused.'

'I mean..' he starts, ' _Had that really been Merlin? I mean? No..? Couldn't have?...Couldn't possibly have?...'_ wonders Arthur, unnerved.

'It looked so like him . . What if? . .It can't have . . . Could it?'

'No….Yes….No….Yes….NO!'

'It couldn't of…maybe . . maybe the incense the old man kept burning got to me?'

.

.

' _Arthur' whispers the voice…_

.

.

' _Arthur' …_

.

.

.

.

.

Merlin

.

.

.

Merlin.

.

.

.

.

My friend.

.

.

Merlin's face!?

.

.

That was Merlin's face!

He saw that face every day! Every bloody morning! Granted not that 'gussied up' but … WHAT THE HELL WAS MERLIN'S FACE DOING ON THAT…THAT FAIRY'S! WHAT THE HELL ...WAS IT DOING THERE!? ON A FEY!? SORCEROR!?

.

NO!

.

.

NO!

.

.

.

.

..

No.

NO.

It couldn't of ..?

It had!

No. It couldn't!

It was!

.

.

.

.

Merlin?

.

.

.

It was Merlin's face upon…?

'Had that really been Merlin?'

'It couldn't of…maybe . . maybe the incense the old man kept burning got to me?'

.

.

'Didn't I think that already! Well obviously that's why cause…because…!'

.

.

'It looked so like him . . What if? . .It can't . . . Could it?'

.

.

.

'That was magic! The sorcerer! SOMETHING! COULDN'T!...COULDN'T!'

.

Merlin isn't magical!

Merlin's …MERLIN!

NO.

..

Merlin is his manservant. His friend. His plain. Boring. Normal. Cheery. Upbeat. Perky. Predictable. Tavern obsessed. Chore skiving! Goofy. Useless. Crazy. Odd. Annoying. Silly. Sometimes very wise, kind, loyal, best HUMAN FRIEND!

HUMAN. MORTAL.

HE IS NOT A MAGICAL….BEING OF OTHERWORLDLY POWER!

It's not possible!

.

.

.

.

.

.

NOT POSSIBLE.

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

" _Arthur!" spoke a voice._

 _A voice he knew, yet had never heard before?_

 _Not with the waves of water for pitch or the warmth of a hearth for tenor._

 _Not with an inhuman mesmerizing charm._

 _Not with startled inexplicable fear?_

 _Not like that..._

 _*"Arthur!"_

" _Prat!"_

" _Clotpole"_

" _Supercilious"_

" _One day you will be a great King"_

" _You must learn to listen"_

" _A feeling"_

" _You have a choice!...So how you do it?"_

" _Nope! You're coming with me!"_

" _Just don't be a prat."_

" _She's my mother"_

" _Cabbage head!"_

" _I thought you were going for a hug?"_

" _I never left!"_

" _Must be irritating."_

" _Destinies are troublesome things"_

" _People should marry for love."_

" _Trust in yourself"*_

" _Arthur?"_

" _Arthur."_

" _ARTHUR!"_

 _._

 _._

" _Arthur!'_

Merlin?

 _._

 _._

.

.

.

.

.

No.

Just no!

What a ridiculous idea!

Preposterous!

Clearly he had waaaaayy too much wine at the celebration a day or so ago…

Yes. Yes. Or maybe he'd been drugged! What was in those twigs!?

That incense!

That damn druidy incense was to blame!

Right. Yes. That makes much more sense!

A very logical conclusion…had to be…because…. Because…

" _Some even…lives on in humans!" chimed an old recovered memory._

No. It's not..?

" _Like Me!?" exclaimed his own voice._

'No. No. No. He must be mistaken, hallucinated…his mind confused?'

" _They's be boys and girls just like you!" the memory taught confidently._

Oh God.

" _Some even…lives on in humans!"_

 _OH GOD_

" _They's be boys and girls just like you!"_

.

"Like Me," whispered Arthur staring at his hands, then the twigs across the floor.

"Like Me," he whispered again, his head whirling.

" _Have we met?"_

" _No I don't believe so. I never forget a face."_

" _Your eyes we've met somewhere before?"_

OH GOD!

NO DAMNIT! IT'S NOT…IT COULDN'T…

.

You know better.

'You know' snarked his own inner voice, unmercifully.

You know.

.

.

.

 _The dragon?_

 _._

 _._

 _The excuses?_

 _._

 _._

 _The "funny feelings"._

 _._

 _._

 _._

 _._

 _Your dumb "luck"._

 _._

 _._

 _An air of natural…_

 _._

 _Nobility?._

 _._

 _Wisdom?_

 _._

 _._

 _._

 _Something special…?_

 _._

 _._

 _._

 _._

 _._

 _._

 _._

 _._

 _._

" _Arthur!"_

 _._

.

 _._

 _._

"It could." Whispers the darkest most secret depths of his soul.

"It most certainly could."

"Really now?"

"Why are you getting so upset? You've been suspecting it… deliberately ignoring it…haven't you? In truth. You've known about it for a long time, however just like your childhood memory of Mam Baba Yiga. You kept suppressing it, ignoring the obvious. You did the same with your _sister_ Morgana's oddities."

"Trying not to acknowledge it. That which is, in the end, when scrutinized oh so obvious…yet you didn't want it to be true… didn't want to add the facts up…. Didn't want to think of those missing hours with the dragon?

With everyone but…Merlin unscathed… .unharmed..by such a powerful creature? …All those incidents where he …helped you…that didn't make sense…..the Fisher King's Trial for instance….you still don't know what happen to the beasts that attacked you? Do you? You only remember losing consciousness as they were falling upon you…then Merlin's face….convenient how he shows up is it not?

…..How about this? ….How did Merlin and Lancelot …take on Cenred…and Morgause….you've fought Lancelot in training he isn't near as talented as you...So….How then?

When you take the time to add them together...there are a plethora of incidents, of odd occurrences...Remember that 'Love Spell' cast on you…..Merlin "knocked you out" rescued you …..Merlin..

Merlin always there…..and you know….you know….but you don't want to know…you don't…. …and you know why you don't want to know…didn't want to know..…so of course…how could it?...It can't…possibly..…it couldn't have possibly been Merlin last night…transformed or disguised somehow as that old man…..that oddly "familiar" old man with such piercing strikingly similar _blue eyes_ …..who turned into…?"

.

.

.

.

.

.

A long buried image of Merlin storming into the council chamber, Gwen under arrest…for a healing poultice…that cured her father, "Gwen is not the sorcerer! I AM! I DID IT!" screams his idiot of a friend… in such bold declaration…

.

.

.

.

"I AM." Such two powerful words….

"I AM." Said with such pure solid conviction….

.

.

"I AM!"

.

.

I AM.

.

.

I am.

.

.

.

That's what he said, his dear beloved idiot of a friend…

.

"Except he isn't an idiot is he? Often he puts things together faster then you doesn't he?" Arthur whispers.

.

"I AM"….two words... pronounced with all of Merlin's honest severity.

.

I Am.

.

…. "… _How you treat your servants! They do everything for you! But do they get any thanks!" yells the Old Man…oh so familiar…._

 _._

 _._

.

I Am.

.

It plays again, the events of last night, this time like a beautiful t _errible_ _dream_ …

" _Arthur!" the voice is of water, of warmth, of light and music but it's still_ _ **His!**_

 _Isn't it!?_

Something trickles down out of his eye.

His fingers are quivering.

Something starts to fall from his other eye. The room begins to get blurry….

" _Arthur!"_

 _His name._

 _His. Spoken…by…?_

He can't shake this.

Can't deny or ignore it, for one thing, he's still in his fathers chambers isn't he?

Which means he was in his father's chambers last night.

He gulps again, as he slowly brings his hands into a position where they can help support his weight.

He has to know.

He has to know if last night was real! If? If?

IF!?

Has to know whether he dreamed it all up in some desperate delusion or if, if? Does he _really_ want to know? He pauses. He feels so numb, hallow and a tad disoriented. His large now fully-grown hands are trembling, nobodies here so he instinctually bites the nail of his thumb. He looks up, blurry vision and all, to the bed from his spot on the floor. He can see the outline of a body lying there.

He's afraid.

Afraid to be right.

Afraid to be wrong.

From the open window in his father's chambers pours the soft light of morning, the sounds of a new day echo. He can hear the distant cheery call of a knight or two. He can hear the gentle humdrum stirrings of Camelot, and he's lived here long enough that he can match the sounds to the citizen's activities.

It is a good distraction, temporary though it is.

The maids and handmaidens are gossiping about the Kitchens, carrying pitchers and laundry, the Cook has her latest assistants tossing out yesterday's leftovers, preparing this mornings bread. The new blacksmith and Elyan are pounding away at the smithy, the horses' neigh as they are being shoed. The morning patrol makes it's rounds, and the shop owners in the market place are bustling about whilst opening their stalls in preparation of selling their wares.

A breeze blows by through the window, grazing his skin and blonde hair, stardust spins in the air, still so beautiful, on the wind he catches the faint melody of the local tavern, string and drum, beating away like his anxious heart. Children being bathed by their mothers or awoken by their parents laugh and squeal in delight, he thinks he can hear Gwaine making jokes already as he flirts with the horse masters daughter. He even thinks he can hear Guinevere humming as she brushes sleep knots out of her beautiful rich hair.

A dog barks.

A cat meows.

There is the smell of morning dewdrops left from last night's thunderstorm that reaches his nose.

Directly outside his father's chambers the guards arrive at their post their heavy footfalls, clear identifiers, and somewhere in his head he knows that either Gaius or another member of the council will arrive soon to check on his father's health…

It's all so mundane, so normal, routine, and he can't help but feel a little isolated, because it suddenly doesn't feel fair. That such a beautiful average day should harken forth what he knows will be the beginning of the single largest existential shift in his perception of his reality that he has ever had to face.

The worst part is….deep down…he's known.

The truth lying there possibly just within his reach.

He has always known.

This shouldn't be so hard?

He takes in a deep breathe.

 _If he could accept almost by instinct, fairies, fey, The Queen, and …Yiga…then?_

This shouldn't be so hard, but it is?

This, this is a secret truth he had long suspected.

One that has been kept hidden from him, misconstrued and perhaps often denied.

It rattles him and he stares at the bed, specifically the body in the bed.

He needs to get up off this floor.

Needs to confirm, 'Oh god…please…please..'

" _There, there luv.." whispers the memory of Yiga in his head._

It encourages him to be brave.

Her memory, even nearly completely forgotten, has always encouraged him to be brave!

Another tear falls down his cheek, he remembers her fully now.

For so long he had tried to forget her, hadn't he?

Torn so between the love of his father and the love of the magic woman, the loving gnome who had saved his life. How could he have suppressed her memory, almost all of her had been lost, and suddenly he's leaning against his father's favorite chair. Ashamed. Bitter.

Sad, because she was one of the main reasons why he had wanted to be a knight?

Wasn't she?

He had wanted to honor her.

He feels a wash of shame for nearly forgetting her, for trying too.

Oh sure he had wanted to be a knight for his father's sake and approval, but it wasn't until after Yiga's sacrifice that he'd really taken it all seriously.

It wasn't until her death that he had truly put his heart into it, even at the age of eight, because like Yiga, he had wanted to be brave.

He had wanted to be strong.

So that he could always protect those he cherished, just as she had protected him.

More tears escape. Didn't he say he wouldn't cry? Or couldn't?

Well now he can't seem to stop, as frustration and rage pour out of him, and then guilt. Terrible guilt and grief.

He stares at the bed.

What did it mean if it had worked?

If the _spell_ the "old man" or whatever he really was, had been cast correctly….?

If the "old man" truly was…Mer.. …?

.

.

.

.

… _Mam Baba Yiga_ had known him for only a few DAYS!

And now that the memory was released?

His father tried so hard to overshadow her, keeping him so constantly busy: princely duties, tracking lessons, knightly duties, teachings, training, fencing lessons, horseback riding lessons, archery, geography classes, bloody knot tying classes, 'Oh! OH GOD!'

They had buried her.

His father who hated magic, who _loathed_ it!

Had buried her, an honor he had forbade so many countless others!

Solid proof of his hypocrisy, Arthur felt bile rise in his throat..

She was there, her poor torn body was still there. Buried in a lonely solitary marked grave by the river in the _Darkling Woods_ …

He had unknowingly gone past it, on every single patrol!

He'd done it for supposed shear luck!

His subconscious trying to tell him of its true important significance!

A choked sob escapes him as a sudden epiphany overwhelms him, "Oh god please. . please forgive me" he whispers his heart breaking!

How many little druid children had _he_ chased down dressed in Camelot red?

 _Running as he had._

 _Once upon a time?_

How many fleeing 'Yigas' had run at the sound of _his own_ horse's hooves and the approach of Camelot knights, knowing that death was pursuing them?

 _Just as he and Yiga had from that Monster on horseback?!_

'Oh God. NO! . . whatever the results of the spell…between the Unicorn and Yiga…oh god. What have I done? What in my father's name have I done?! _What. Have. I. Done?!_ ' thought Arthur wanting to scream and scream suddenly.

His soul wailing in sudden awful guilty tormented anguish!

He felt pieces of him breaking away.

Morgana flashed across his head, the little druid boy pressed against her, the pleading in her eyes, * " _Please he's just a boy! He's just a little boy!"_

Merlin's friend Will in the village of Ealdor, " _That's twice I've saved you."_

The old Dragon Lords weary sorrowful eyes, a gruff scoff, " _I seek no reward."_

Anhora's wise knowing eyes, " _You could have chosen to ignore his taunts. What harm would they do you?...Your people's suffering is not my doing. It is yours."_

Grettir who guarded the fisher kings bridge, " _You'd be wise not to dismiss it so freely. …You must be Courage."_

The quiet druid boy turns, eyes as blue as his own, " _My name is Mordred."*_

" _Your fear has blinded you. I pity you."_ Declares the druid man, Mordred's father so bravely before he is executed. A hundred other cries echo him, some pleading mercy, others begging, many fighting…fighting for their lost loved ones, for their children, for family, for justice, for faith, for respect, for their right just to live.

To Live!

 _Just as Mam Baba Yiga had fought for him, all the way to her bitter end!_

" _Z.a'right. . ye…safe…..now…" her blood trickles to the ground._

 _YIGA!_

Arthur shuts his eyes, he suddenly can't breathe!

.

.

Despair. Guilt. Anger. Hate. Sorrow. Failure. Agony and oddly enough a strange sense of Hope and Longing so much, yet all seem unsuitable words for what he feels! There are no words to describe this torrential downpour of feeling! Of knowing!

'How many?' his jumbled fretted mind thinks, 'How many _more?_ How many….'

Arthur's eyes widen.

He is not…a stupid man.

Despite what many may think or assume, he knows four languages, can write and read, and if he focuses…

He stares at his hands.

Such strong looking hands, aren't they?

Bloodied, guilty hands…hands that could have been ….

'Killed.'

'I could have been killed, if not, for a magical person' the world stops.

Slowly he looks back up.

Sunlight glints around the room and with it, the illumination of a whispered thought.

.

.

.

'If?' he questions.

'If even Morgana, my _sister_ , had _magic_ and I didn't notice…?' he gulps again, he tries to breathe. His mind placing and organizing things so fast he couldn't even begin to explain the _connections_ he was suddenly seeing, the _loop holes_ in his memories of the last three to four years, _certain adventures_ he could suddenly _explain_ and _daring_ to guess at!

 _There was one memory in particular…one with his mother….his mother._

" _God," the word halts upon his tongue._

 _His mother…his mother…_

 _*"She's a sorceress!"…._ that's what _Merlin_ said wasn't it?

 _Merlin..whose face…had last night appeared on.. …_

 _The eyes of the old man….._

 _The familiarity ….!_

 _The Dragon Lord…_

 _Merlin crying…s_

 _The .. . close calls. . . the shield Merlin warned him of. . . the troll . . Merlin.._

 _Merlin always being right… Merlin…always there…_

 _._

" _Oh god," he sobs aloud._

 _!_

 _!_

 _ **Two things.**_

 _ **His mind puts together two things.**_

 _ **Two very important things!**_

 _ **Like two words**_

 _ **I AM**_

 _ **!**_

 _ **.**_

 _ **.**_

.

.

.

" _What another one of your funny feelings Merlin?"_

" _Well…yes.."_

" _How could you possibly know?"_

" _I …I just do!"_

" _She's a sorceress!" Merlin cries in a painful anguished pleading tone._

 _Painful._

 _Full of so much pain…_

 _._

 _._

 _._

Those were the " _Magic_ " words weren't they?

" _She's a sorceress!"_

"Anything with magic, must be evil," that's what his father had always forcefully drilled into him and that was probably the only thing that _Merlin_ could have said at the time to get him to hesitate in his fury.

That fury burned now, but it was buried under a strange numb ambiguous feeling he could not define, save a single need, 'The truth? What was the truth?'

 _Yiga's teachings came back to him in a flash…the song of the Fey drifting over his thoughts…_

Suddenly he didn't have to look at the bed.

He didn't even need to get off the floor.

His mind played the memory of that ugly incident again, him at his father's throat, the _guilt_ he'd seen in his father's eyes and it being oh so similar to the guilt he'd show after the reveal of Morgana's parentage and magic.

' _Guilt. For he was guilty wasn't he…_ What a small taste of what was to come or what had been, buried like brave Yiga, all along,' his mind felt heavy.

He felt heavy.

Worse for the first time he felt, old, nay, he felt ancient.

Weak.

Tired.

Broken.

Yet he couldn't stop the cogs in his brain from turning, couldn't stop the sudden traitorous or perhaps the clearer picture of what exactly had really happened in his father's council chamber that awful, miserable day.

It was like an avalanche, unstoppable, brutal, and full.

There was no way to stop it.

Not when the _truth,_ like grass under melting frost, was suddenly becoming visible…

'Lets say for a moment,' said the logical detached calculated part of Arthur, 'that you _had_ magic, ' _Very, very, very secret powerful magic!_ Crazy as that is and let's say even crazier! That your . . ' _friends_ ' with the son of the man who kills people like you everyday. . then . your friend finds out a terrible _truth_ that has him about to run his old man through and . . . being the large _Idiot, and you are the Biggest Damned Idiot,_ which you are,. . you realize that your friend would forever regret such an act so. . . what do . . you . . do?'

" _She's a sorceress!"_ that was exactly what Merlin said wasn't it?

 _Merlin._

 _Merlin._

 _Merlin._

MERLIN.

 _INSUFFRABLE BLOODY MERLIN!_

 _Merlin_ tearing up, as he tries to convince you not to kill your father!

" _I Am"_

 _Damn him._

 _Merlin who doesn't cry over so many other things he should!_

" _I AM!"_

 _Merlin_ close to crying like a girl over something that honestly wasn't even related to him! Had nothing to do with! Just like with the stupid Dragon Lord, just like so many other times that might make sense if he applies one tiny little word!

Confound him.

Damn him.

Damn him!

Damn himself too!

Damn his father!

Damn Camelot!

DAMNMIT!

 _WHY WAS MERLIN ALWAYS THERE?_

 _EVERY SITUATION!_

 _WITH A SOLUTION! CRAZY BUT A SOLUTION!_

 _WHY THE HELL HAD MERLIN EVEN BEEN UPSET!?_

 _HE WAS THE ONE LEARNING HIS FATHER HAD LIED TO HIM!_

 _ALL HIS LIFE!_

 _HE WAS THE ONE WHO MAY HAVE BEEN BORN OF MAGIC…_

 _Oh F**k._

 _OH SHIT._

 _SHITE!_

 _WELL SHIT!_

…

…

…

 _The shamble._

 _._

 _._

 _Yiga._

 _That's right._

 _That's right isn't it!?_

He can't breathe.

 _He had been born of magic hadn't he?_

 _He'd made a shamble._

" _A magician you'll be yet!" she cheerily chirped at him._

 _._

 _._

"A magician you'll be yet," he mutters bitterly.

He tries to breathe. He can't! He can't! His eyes burn!

"A…(sob)… magi…(gasp)...cian," Arthur slumps.

He's practically lying back down on the floor. A terrible sound emerges from his throat or lungs! He can't tell!

He's laughing, crying, laughing, and crying because he knows it's _true!_

Sixteen damn years later and here's the _Truth!_

Oh Morgause, the foul bitch, probably had been using him to finish off his father that was for damn sure; but the she-bitch had used the _Truth!_

He feels himself falling apart.

Scratch that breaking!

Breaking!

He hears something or someone moving, rustling about but it's probably with his luck just a rat.

Merlin made him eat rat once, but if last night was real, if that had indeed happened.

 **Then his "** _ **manservant"**_ **should have …** _ **conjured up some blasted damn potatoes!**_

.

.

He feels detached like this is happening to someone else. He wishes a little bit that it was. He just doesn't know what he feels and suddenly he just can't help but laugh!

He laughs and laughs and then he lets out a sad wail of anguish!

Before covering his mouth trying to stop a sob as bile rises.

He goes quiet, his chest aches, his body heaves!

For it's all so …so ridiculous!

Yes hilarious!

All of it, his whole life is like one…one big giant sick joke!

It dawns on him that he's having a bit of a panic attack or something vaguely similar to a mental break down? He's decides he's had enough of those within the last twenty-four hours. So some part of him tries with herculean effort to do the opposite. In his need his body, mind, whatever tries to help him handle the situation by using some sword fighting meditative focus techniques. He starts, or well he tries at least. He breathes in and out he listens once more to the birds singing, the hustle and bustle of the people in the courtyard and nope.

Nooopeee..

It's just not working.

Padded feet and the shuffle of a quilt sound in the background but he doesn't register it.

The whole world has been turned upside down, and all because last night he had wanted to save his Da!

" _I AM!" he hears his friend confess as his mind screeches at him the truth over and over._

What had Yiga said about wishes?

Messy business? Yea. Sounded accurate.

"Ohhh noooo" he wept.

It wasn't fair!

Cause even if he wasn't seven years old anymore. He still loved his father.

Needed his father.

His Papa.

His murdering, hypocritical, faulty, harsh, judgmental, self-righteous, vain, selfish, stubborn, lying father, wrong father, and damn him, damn him for choosing to have him! Because Arthur couldn't help it!

He loved his irresponsible psychotic twisted up, faulty, guilty, bully of a father!

God help him! God curse him!

GOD WHY!

IT WAS TRUE!

OH IT WAS TRUE!

ALL OF IT!

ALL TRUE!

BORN OF MAGIC!

'I WAS BORN OF MAGIC'

HE WAS BORN OF MAGIC!

AND HIS FRIEND …

HIS FRIEND….

" _I AM"_

Arthur sobs.

He weeps like a little child. He weeps for his life, for the lives he had wrongly taken, he weeps for Yiga and all her unjustly persecuted kind, he weeps for his lost misguided, missing sister, for his mother, for his father, and he weeps for them!

For all the people of magic! For all the people of Camelot! For Gwen! Her father! Hell even the criminals! He weeps for his suffering kingdom! For the innocent he falsely so wrongfully misjudged and condemned.

He weeps for them!

…..The Prince of Camelot, the Once and Future King…curls up into a tiny ball..and bawls his broken heart out to the world.

His body is wracked by gut wrenching sobs…broken.

Everything is broken!

Honor is gone!

Everything is wrong!

He doesn't understand!

He doesn't know anything anymore!

What did he ever know!?

His friends were right! He was a ' _Princess'_! Blind and ignorant to the world!

Total clot pole! His poor sister….his poor mother….his poor people.

'Oh Gwen,' he thought, the guilt for her father's murder, weighing him down like a stone, 'Gwen', how strong she was?

What would Gwen say?!

Oh God…

The world he knew died, last night and now?

Now?

MERLIN HAS MAGIC!

MERLIN IS SOME KIND OF MAGICAL CREATURE!

MERLIN'S A SORCEROR!

MERLIN SPROUTED WINGS!

MY FRIEND **LIED** TO ME!

 **EVERYONE LIED!**

 **LIARS! LIARS! LIARS! LIARS! LIARS! LIARS EVERYWHERE!**

 **SURROUNDED BY LIARS!**

 **WHY!?**

 **WHY DAMNIT ALL! WHY!?**

 **IT….IT!**

It hurts so much.

So very much.

No one trusted him.

Was he so unworthy?

Not Gaius. Not his Father. Not his friend…

He was…alone and still being coddled.

Kept in the dark.

Manipulated.

Used.

Like an inanimate object!

His stomach rolled. He felt sick!

He had trusted Merlin with his life!

His life!?

He felt so angry!

Honesty and faith?

Were such things truly so hard to give!

Here he was born of Magic. Saved by Magic. His best friend had Magic and …

HE WAS MAGIC!? HE WAS MAGIC TOO WASN'T HE!?

I AM! I AM MAGIC TOO!? 'BORN OF MAGIC' OF MAGIC!?

Yet his father was the man who slaughtered anyone with anything to do with Magic.

His father.

HIS FATHER THE TYRANT KING!

HIS FRIEND, MAGIC, IN THE HEART OF CAMELOT!

HIMSELF!

BORN OF IT!

….

.

…

.

He didn't know how to cope with this.

.

.

'I'm not strong enough…I? I? I?'..

…

.

.

What would happen if?

.

A vision of Merlin burning at the stake …

NO.

NO.

HE WOULD USE MAGIC HIMSELF FIRST!

...

.

.

.

Arthur froze. His whole body going fiercely still. The thought like the smooth steady slash of a mighty sword.

.

.

.

'I'M BORN OF MAGIC.

I really can? Can't I?

.

.

I, the son of Uther Pendragon, can use Magic!

Hang on? If I can….then? Does that mean?'

.

" _A magician you'll be yet!"_

.

.

.

.

'I'm..not just of Magic.

I'm not just Magic.

I..

I.

Am.

A

 _Sorcerer!'_ _._

 _Or?_

 _At least.._

 _I could be!?_

 _I COULD BE!_

 _._

 _._

 _Merlin._

 _._

 _Gwen._

 _._

 _Gwain. Elyon. Leon. Percival. Lancelot…_

 _._

 _This._

 _This._

Is too much!

It's too much!

…I…..I…I need help!

.

.

.

…I can't! I can't believe….!

"I am," whimpered a sad little voice before out of his throat it came. A buildup of all things culminating into one ululating deluge of animalistic anguish, "I AM! I AMMM! I AM!"

He was magic.

Arthur Pendragon, The Crown Prince of Camelot, was magical.

.

.

.

GOD HELP ME!

MERLIN!

YIGA!

MOTHER! SOMEONE!

PLEASE.

HELP.

.

.

Prince Arthur despaired, weeping profusely. At long last, after sixteen years of lies, he finally knew the truth. So lost in his anguish, his bewildered misery, he failed to notice the astounding sight of King Uther rising phenomenally from his bed, failed to comprehend the old King once again healthy, fit as a fiddle! King Uther seeing his son's distraught state immediately moved towards him! Assuming his son had thought him dead, it had been years since his boy had wept so!

Prince Arthur so trapped within his mind's troubled state, didn't even notice when the King's arms gently enfolded around his shaking, quivering form, cocooning him in a rare paternal embrace. Arthur didn't notice a thing, until his father spoke, "Shhh. Shh. It's alright my son. My son, it's alright. My dear boy!"

"F..father?!" choked Arthur! Watery sky blue eyes, filled with confusion and shock, looked up at last!

"Yes, I'm here, why are you crying?" queried the old King concerned?

Arthur couldn't speak….tears rolled down his cheeks, tears his father gruffly but gently brushed away! His father! He couldn't speak! What of the fair Prince's heart that remained, that had not been torn asunder by too many revelations, or crushed by negative emotion, latched onto the one thing that albeit making no sense served as a true-life line.

For whatever to come.

For whatever had been.

Here was a miracle.

"Your alive!" cried a startled gasping, disbelieving Arthur.

"Your alive!" The Prince cried a piece of his shattered heart returning.

No. Rebuilding.

King Uther was silent for a moment, something heavy passed across his eyes, a haunted, awe filled, humbled, troubled look and then he too began to weep a little before a small ever so family familiar, gratefully, sincere chuckle escaped him, "So I am?" The King paused in wonder, "I am indeed! We both are!"

"You are!" wept Arthur, his heart rebuilding, his brain taking this. This one substantial TRUTH in as it whispered an answer at long last to the question that had plagued his kingdom, plagued his family, and gripped his soul, "Forget" it whispered in simple confirmation, "Forget all that you thought you knew. All that your Father falsely assumed. Forget those of Morgause's and Nimueh's ilk. Forget the monsters, the cruel enchantments, the walking dead, the beasts and focus on this…this one _miraculous_ _gift_."

"Your alive," mumbled Arthur as he took in his Father's healthy complexion, his body still shaking from shock and too much mental trauma and stress.

His father was alive.

Alive.

The Prince's heart, so filled with turmoil, dread, uncertainty and fear, suddenly quicker then any save a few could have predicted…filled beyond the brim with hope.

Clarity and Hope.

'There is another side to Magic,' spoke the inner chambers of the Prince's soul, 'Magic isn't evil. There is good! There is Good! THERE IS LIFE!….'

"Father! YOUR ALIVE!" Arthur joyfully shouted! He didn't need to say anything else, whatever the elder man had done, whatever sins he had committed, whatever trials to come, whatever complicated mess his life was, truths, untruths, all that he would face later! For now…..for now the Prince of Camelot flung his arms around his parent in a fierce bear hug, relishing the treasure of this one incredible moment!

This gift that Magic had given him!

THIS MIRACLE OF HEALING!

THIS….GOOD MAGIC!

'Thank you,' he thinks, his soul building anew, stronger then ever before!

Purposes springing to life in the depths of his heart!

Something dawns on him…?

It is an answer.

The answer!

To all of Camelot's problems, and woes, to the biggest problem of this land, and finally he see's not a solution, but t _he_ solution. The best solution! Nay! It defines itself in his mind like an open book, like ….like…like he was seeing the whole world for the first time!

It was so obvious now!

So clear!

He knew what had to be done!

What Camelot needed!

Yiga!

The Queen!

MERLIN!

.

.

.

Magic.

The answer was with Magic, but not with the kind that his city had seen under fire and force!

No! CAMELOT NEEDED GOOD MAGIC!

Good Magic!

Miraculous Magic!

Magic like the feeling of his father's living heart!

.

.

His father….

.

.

.

The purpose in the Prince's heart turns to steel. It burns with the passion of flame, is tempered by the flow of far sight…..

 _Images, memories of two individuals…two selfless, self-sacrificing souls play in his skull, and no matter how thankful he is to feel his father hugging him…..it does not dissuade him from the course he knows he must now follow, that he is soul bound too….…._

 _He cannot falter. He cannot fail. As a knight he is honor bound to serve._

 _As a man he is duty bound to atone._

 _How can he ignore or veer from what he knows must be sought out and corrected…..?_

 _He will not deny the truth, he will not suppress his memory, and he will not relent or give up._

 _Not when brave women who save children from demons were and for all he knows? Still are, hunted by evil things he has no name for, and men with no understanding…..nor where dearest, closest allies, those truest of friends must hide their greatest skills, their vital wisdom and knowledge, knowledge that could save, that had saved! Hundreds! Hundreds of lives! Including his own! Including his people! Many a time!_

 _Not when noble souls that deserved freedom, or simple souls just wanting to live were being cruelly, yes cruelly, persecuted and flayed alive._

 _No longer._

 _No more._

 _It was like….nature.._

 _There would always be wolves, thunder, thorns, but then?_

' _Where were the deer? Where was the rain? The flowers?'_

"It's alright Arthur! Don't worry son! I say I'm feeling a bit hungry! I'll have the kitchen prepare us some breakfast! We should eat together!" spoke his father, alive and breathing, and talking!

….

.

.

.

' _I use that one fer hiding things…' said Yiga._

' _Just….a funny feeling…' said Merlin._

 _._

 _._

 _._

Arthur blinks rapidly!

It's so obvious!

' _They're hiding. Some of them, I bet, right in plain sight! Of course! It's the ones who are bad! Violent! The fighters! The vengeful ones that keep attacking!'_ he feels the room spinning again his father's grip tightens, "Perhaps you should lays down son?" states the King in concern.

The living King….

' _The good ones, the kind ones, the healers….Merlin…..are hiding! Not only from us…( a flash of the evil daemon enters his brain) ….(Morgause attacking Merlin)….attacking my sister! From the bad ones! Who helps them!? Who defends the good ones! The ones who don't throw curses! Or fireballs!'_

'… _.I….I'm not ….evil…..I'm not ….perfect….but I'm not….'_

Arthur sucks in a breath.

It is like a veil has lifted.

..

.

'I'm just human. Just me and…and so are they? Aren't they?' he thinks sadly. Determination fills him. He has to find them! He will find them! All of them! Every good magic user he can! He has to know more! He has to learn! He can no longer remain ignorant! Not when this affects him too! Not when he too is of Magic! He has so very much to learn! There is so, so much he doesn't know! He doesn't' even know where to start!? He would need help! So much help! Camelot needed help!

The Kingdom of Camelot needed them! Him!

Needed the Truth about Magic!

Later he decided he would worry about what was to come, what steps to do next, later he would figure out how to cope with all this, because right now he was a bit of a pathetic puddle on the floor.

He most certainly was still crying like a baby, but after, after he recovered some he would go figure it out…somehow he needed to solve this, to free those falsely accused, those citizens of his kingdom with special talents, who had to hide all that they were..

Then even later he would seek out his so-called _best_ friend, his unique, terribly stubborn, _selfless_ idiotic, _wonderful,_ sneaky, _magical_ friend. Demand some answers and give him one hard punch for lying, make that two punches then maybe, maybe ….later a hug, or a bloody damn day off!

Screw that! There wouldn't be time for days off! Not with his _sister_ still missing!

Poppycock!

However for now. For this small personal moment, these tiny in sequential seconds, he allowed his mind to relax, because his living parent, his only family still immediately around, was miraculously alive and …so….so…was he.

'Thank you, Merlin!' Arthur thinks as he is finally able, to properly breathe.

'Thank you…..Magic,' vows his gracious soul.

.

.

…..

…(( **End of Chapter 2)….**

End chapter disclaimer:

So yeah, I don't own BBC's Merlin, nor Maleficent. I make sadly no profit. No money. Zip. Zero. Nada. I'M POOR AS HELL! SOB! SOB! WOE IS ME! NO MONEY! SOB!

Only write for fun and to share alternative plot ideas, as a devoted fan! I have no beta reader, and do it all on my lonesome. Again no profit!

I will say I do own my Original characters like: Yiga and Rupert'n the rooster. As well as the basic plot twists unique to this tale but…again I make no money!

I write to inspire others like myself, and to get out the craziness in my own skull! :-D

Moving on…

Woo. WHAT A RIDE! One of the hardest, longest chapters I've ever had to write, but this is it! This is the big wake up call! The 'Reveal' Jeesh! Exhausting! Anyway I'm excited to be moving on to the next chapter! Had a few more things to type in but…I feel like if anything is worthy of it's own chapter, then it would be Arthur's "awakening" to magic, for lack of a better term? Also it has been far, far, far, far, too long since I updated, and this was waaaaaaaayyyyy longer then I planned! Also since I'm typing multiple stories both in and outside of fanfiction. Novels I want to get published etc., and still struggling with real life jobs..it's been a challenge, retail seriously is lousy but hey a writer's gotta eat!

Excuses. Excuses. I know. Sigh. Anyway all in all I hope you enjoy! Thank you to anyone who takes the time to read this stuff! I don't respond to reviews really, please don't be offended, I just don't have time, but please go ahead and leave one if you wish! I'm just too busy! However, I hope to continue this story more soon! And as always all my love and gratitude to my fellow fans!-sincerely Stella Limegood.

P.S. I am my own editor so …I apologize for grammatical errors! I try! I really do! I have more updates for other stuff and three new ideas coming soon! For now, all my love and thanks to anyone that reads this crazy fanfic! My thanks to any followers and well?

Peace! See ya later you Magical Space Cowboys & Gals!

P. P. S. I think the next chapter, I will try to make shorter, just so that I can have a quicker update! Alright…LATERZ!


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